Part 29 (2/2)

”Course I do. But you're so queer. Most girls let a chap do the love-making. They dress themselves up--all laces and ribbons and things, and pretend they're frightened to make a chap all the keener.”

She thought it out, sitting up as straight as possible.

”I couldn't, Louis,” she said decidedly. ”I've read that in books, years ago. I didn't understand it then, but I do now. And I think it's horrible. Father had a lot of books about those things and I read them to him when he was ill. I was looking one up again the other day--that day you threw the teapot in the sea.” And she told him about the ”preliminary canter.”

”Well, that's absolutely right,” he said coolly. ”Women are like that.

They're specialized for s.e.x. Don't you admit that you've no brains?

You've told me so many a time, and your father always said you were an idiot. And don't you admit that when I kiss you--especially here in the tropics where everything is a bit accelerated--you feel different--all wobbly--?”

She nodded, looking startled.

”Well, what does it mean? It simply means you're specialized. Yes you are, Marcella. Specialized as a woman. All this--this liking to be kissed, and feeling wobbly. They're Kraill's preliminary canter.”

”Oh no--no!” she cried in horror.

”Oh, yes, yes!” he mocked, laughing at her gently.

”But Louis, how horrible!”

”Well, you're always preaching honesty and facing facts,” he said bluntly.

”Yes--” she said thoughtfully. ”But--I don't like it. I hate it. I don't believe Kraill thinks like that, really--I've read three of his courses of lectures and in all of them he doesn't seem to approve of women being like that. Just vehicles of existence or bundles of sensation. He seems, to me, to resent women.”

”Yes--after many love adventures,” he began.

”But--don't you think all the time he was just getting his education?

Like I am? A month ago I'd have been horrified at the thought of kissing you. Now I like it. A few months ago I loathed the thought of having a body--and just everything connected with it. Now, ever since that day I was getting my nice frock ready to go with you to Pompeii I've not minded it a bit. All the time, now, I wish I was nicer.”

”Because you've fallen in love, my child,” he said, smiling in supreme superiority. ”And falling in love instructs even fools.”

”It's taught me some very lovely things the last few days, Louis,” she said dreamily. ”It's taught me that I've to be very s.h.i.+ning, for you.

And it's taught me that I'd die for you very happily. But what you've just said--about kissing--has suddenly taught me something very beastly.

I wanted to love you with my soul and my mind. And now you say it's the hot weather!”

”Well, so it is, dearie. Love's not a spiritual nor a mental thing. It's purely physical. A love affair is always a thousand times swifter under the Southern Cross than under the Great Bear. And it's a million times swifter on board s.h.i.+p than anywhere else because people are thrown into such close contact. They've nothing to do and their bodies get slack and pampered, and they eat heaps too much. It's like the Romans in the dying days of Pompeii--eating, drinking and physical love-making. One day I heard Kraill say in a lecture that men and women can't work together, in offices or anything, or scientific laboratories because they--well--they'd get in each other's light and make each other jumpy.”

”And do you believe it?”

”Course I do,” he said. ”Even if you had the brains or the knowledge for--say research work, I couldn't work with you. I'd be thinking of the way your lips look when they're getting ready to kiss me; and of your white shoulders that I can just catch a peep of when you sit a little way behind me, in that white blouse with little fleur-de-lys on the collar. Naturally if I tried to work then, the work would go to pot.”

”But--” she tried to control her voice, which shook in spite of herself, ”do you--think of those things--about me?”

”Of course. All men do about their women.”

”It's horrible,” she gasped, frowning at the Southern Cross. ”And doesn't it mean that men are specialized, too?”

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