Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/188

 regulated locomotive slows down or pulls up when it sees the red light hoisted against it. Perhaps I was born colour blind. When I see the red signal—I can’t help forging ahead. And in the end, you know, that spells disaster. Bound to. And quite right really. That sort o’thing is bad for traffic generally.”

He still spoke very seriously.

“I suppose,” said Virginia, “that you have taken a good many risks in your life?”

“Pretty nearly every one there is—except marriage.”

“That’s rather cynical.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. Marriage, the kind of marriage I mean, would be the biggest adventure of the lot.”

“I like that,” said Virginia, flushing eagerly.

“There’s only one kind of woman I’d want to marry—the kind who is worlds removed from my type of life. What would we do about it? Is she to lead my life, or am I to lead hers?”

“If she loved you”

“Sentimentality, Mrs. Revel. You know it is. Love isn’t a drug that you take to blind you to your surroundings—you can make it that, yes, but it’s a pity—love can be a lot more than that. What do you think the King and his beggar maid thought of married life after they’d been married a year or two? Didn’t she regret her rags and her bare feet and her care-free life? You bet she did. Would it have been any good renouncing his Crown for her sake? Not a bit of good, either. He’d have made a damned bad beggar, I’m sure. And no woman respects a man when he’s doing a thing thoroughly badly.”

“Have you fallen in love with a beggar maid, Mr. Cade?” inquired Virginia softly.

“It’s the other way about with me, but the principle’s the same.”

“And there’s no way out?” asked Virginia.

“There’s always a way out,” said Anthony gloomily. “I’ve a theory that one can always get anything one wants if one will pay the price. And do you know what the price is, nine times out of ten? Compromise. A beastly thing, compromise, but it steals up on you as you near middle age. It’s stealing up on me now. To get the woman I want I’d—I’d even take up regular work.”

Virginia laughed.