Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/69

 "Well, that'll do," he laughed, "I should probably have wanted to knock him down; now I should kill him. Why?"

"Merely a psychological readjustment of your ideas of crime and punishment," said Tallis.

"No, that's not it," said Beresford musingly. "It goes deeper than that. Before the war, killing was an unthinkable crime, now it's little more than kicking a man downstairs. In other words this generation has pricked the bubble of the sacredness of human life."

"I suppose that's it," said Tallis, as if reluctant to admit it. "But"

"That doesn't settle my little hash, you mean?" Beresford interrupted.

"Your little hash will settle itself, my son," replied Tallis with a smile, "unless you're a bit more reasonable," he added.

"I was coming to that. I seem to have lost the will to live. It's odd," Beresford continued musingly, "but when things worry or irritate me, I seem instinctively to fall back on the"

"Hari-kari idea?" suggested Tallis.

"That's it," he nodded. "The way out. Why is it?"

"Liver."

"Oh, rot! If it's liver, why didn't I notice it before the war?"

"Nerves and liver do make cowards of us all," said Tallis sententiously. "Anyhow, don't hurry off from here."