Page:Rudyard Kipling - A diversity of creatures.djvu/93

Rh 'One awful shock—not palpitation, but shock, shock, shock!'

'As though your soul were being stopped—as you'd stop a finger-bowl humming?' he said.

'Just that,' she answered. 'One's very soul—the soul that one lives by—stopped. So!'

She drove her thumb deep into the arm-rest. 'And now,' she whined to him, 'now that we've stirred each other up this way, mightn't we have just one?'

'No,' said Conroy, shaking. 'Let's hold on. We're past'—he peered out of the black windows—'Woking. There's the Necropolis. How long till dawn?'

'Oh, cruel long yet. If one dozes for a minute, it catches one.'

'And how d'you find that this'—he tapped the palm of his glove—'helps you?' 'It covers up the thing from being too real—if one takes enough—you know. Only—only—one loses everything else. I've been no more than a bogie-girl for two years. What would you give to be real again? This lying's such a nuisance.'

'One must protect oneself—and there's one's mother to think of,' he answered.

'True. I hope allowances are made for us somewhere. Our burden—can you hear?—our burden is heavy enough.'

She rose, towering into the roof of the carriage. Conroy's ungentle grip pulled her back.

'Now you are foolish. Sit down,' said he.

'But the cruelty of it! Can't you see it? Don't you feel it? Let's take one now—before I'