Page:Aaron's Rod, Lawrence, New York 1922.djvu/286

 "Me? I care for several things. I care for my wife. I care for love. And I care to be loved. And I care for some pleasures. And I care for music. And I care for Italy."

"You are well off for cares," said Lilly.

"And you seem to me so very poor," said Del Torre.

"I should say so—if he cares for nothing," interjaculated Argyle. Then he clapped Lilly on the shoulder with a laugh. "Ha! Ha! Ha!—But he only says it to tease us," he cried, shaking Lilly's shoulder. "He cares more than we do for his own way of loving. Come along, don't try and take us in. We are old birds, old birds," said Argyle. But at that moment he seemed a bit doddering.

"A man can't live," said the Italian, "without an object."

"Well—and that object?" said Lilly.

"Well—it may be many things. Mostly it is two things.—love, and money. But it may be many things: ambition, patriotism, science, art—many things. But it is some objective. Something outside the self. Perhaps many things outside the self."

"I have had only one objective all my life," said Argyle. "And that was love. For that I have spent my life."

"And the lives of a number of other people, too," said Lilly.

"Admitted. Oh, admitted. It takes two to make love: unless you're a miserable—"

"Don't you think," said Aaron, turning to Lilly, "that however you try to get away from it, if you're not after money, and can't fit yourself into a job—you've got to, you've got to try and find something else—somebody else—somebody. You can't really be alone."

"No matter how many mistakes you've made—you can't really be alone—?" asked Lilly.

"You can be alone for a minute. You can be alone just in that minute when you've broken free, and you feel heart thankful to be alone, because the other thing wasn't to be borne. But you can't keep on being alone. No matter how many times you've broken free, and feel, thank God to be alone (nothing on earth is so good as to breathe fresh air and be