Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/341

Rh be hungry, at my time of life. Don't you find me very absurd?"

"I find you very—appealing."

"Oh," he murmured. "It's hard to be absurd twice over."

"Oh, it's life that's absurd. There's such horrid waste in it," said Teresa, almost angrily. "I don't see why one shouldn't love where one likes."

"Because love's like hunger. When it's satisfied you're not hungry any more, that's all. Brown bread and cheese may satisfy you—and then it doesn't matter if Lucullus asks you to dinner—I don't mean that I'm Lucullus! … We can't bear loneliness, any of us. Do you remember Maupassant's 'Solitude'? It's that solitude that we're driven at any cost to get away from. We can't stand too much of ourselves. We must have somebody who answers us … and most of us never find that person. But you've found it."

"Have I? I don't know. I thought I had. But who really knows or understands another person, after all?"

"Not all at once. But it comes. And the process of finding out is interesting."

"Not always pleasant. There are some things one would prefer not to find out."

"What things, for example?"

"Well—other women."