and whether you wouldn't find down here, and all of us, very dull when
you come back?"

"What rot! Of course not! Why should I?" asked Ishmael, already so in
London in anticipation that he could not even take an interest in his
return to this older world.

"Oh, I don't know. I only wondered. You never wonder about things, do
you, Ishmael?"

"I don't think I ever do anything else."

"Not in the way I mean. You wonder about life and all sorts of things
like that that I don't bother about, but not about people, about what
you feel for them. That's what I mean by wondering."

"Oh, feeling!..." said Ishmael in a gruff embarrassment; "I dunno. Yes I
do, though. I don't think what one feels is so very important--not the
personal part of it, anyway. There's such a lot of things in the world,
and somehow it seems waste of energy to be always tearing oneself to
tatters over one's personal relationship towards any one other person."

Phoebe tried to snatch at the words that blew past over her head as
far as her comprehension of them was concerned.

"But how can you say it's not important?" she exclaimed reproachfully.
"Even being married wouldn't seem important if you looked at it that
way."

"Even being married...." repeated Ishmael. Inwardly came the swift