Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/140

 "No," said Harriet, I let him do as he likes."

"Wonderful woman! Even the wind bloweth where it listeth."

"So does he."

"With your permission."

"The wind has permission too," said Harriet. "Everything goes by permission of something else, in this world." But she went rather red.

"Bravo, a Daniel come to judgment!" Then his voice changed, became gentle and winning again. It was as if he had remembered to love her, in his way of love. "It's not quite a political thing," he said. "We want to take away the strain, the nervous tension out of life, and let folks be happy again unconsciously, instead of unhappy consciously. You wouldn't say that was wrong, would you?"

"No," she replied, rather unwilling.

"And if I have to be a fat old Kangaroo with—not an Abraham's bosom, but a pouch to carry young Australia in—why—do you really resent it?"

Harriet laughed, glancing involunarily at his lowest waistcoat button. It seemed such a true figure.

"Why should I resent it? It's not my business."

"Let it be your business just a little bit. I want your sympathy."

"You mean you want Lovat?"

"Poor Lovat. Richard Lovat Somers! I do indeed want him. But just as much I want your sympathy."

Harriet smiled enigmatically. She was being her most annoying. A look of almost vicious anger came over the man's face as he leaned back in his chair, seeming to make his brows narrower, and a convulsion seemed to go through his belly. Then he recovered his calm, and seemed to forget. For a long time he lay silent, with a strange, hypnotic stillness, as if he were thinking far away, quite far away. Both Harriet and Somers felt spellbound. Then from the distance came his small voice:

"Man that is born of woman is sick of himself. Man that is born of woman is tired of his day after day. And woman is like a mother with a tiresome child: what is she to do with him? What is she to do with him?—man, that is born of woman.