Why shouldn't it be me?"
"I shouldn't attempt to live. I know exactly what I'd do. I've got it
all worked out! I shall just get blind, roaring drunk and then throw
myself in the harbour. My life is useless without you."
To his amazement she wrung her hands hopelessly, and looked at him with
tragic eyes.
"Can't you see, you utter idiot, that that's just all wrong? It's no use
doing things for someone else! You've got to do them for yourself!
What's the good of it? Do you think I want to make you a flabby thing
hanging on to my apron strings all the time? You've got drunk on whisky
in the past. Louis, I'm simply not going to have you getting drunk on
me! What on earth's the use of conquering drink hunger and getting
woman-hunger? It's only another--what you call neurosis, and what I call
kink! If that's all the use my love and the whole wicked struggle is
going to be, I might as well give up at once?"
He caught her wet face between his hands. In the light of the candle he
looked at her earnestly.
"If, at the end of all this, I've to go on being a prop to you, we need
not go on trying any more. Props are rotten and cowardly, whether they
are props of love or not. I want to see you grow so that, if I go out of
life, you'll stand up straight with your head in the sun and the wind.
Not propped, my dear! Father was all wrong, I think now.
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