"
"Are we all alone in our circle?" asked Hewet.
"Quite alone," said Hirst. "You try to get out, but you can't. You only
make a mess of things by trying."
"I'm not a hen in a circle," said Hewet. "I'm a dove on a tree-top."
"I wonder if this is what they call an ingrowing toe-nail?" said Hirst,
examining the big toe on his left foot.
"I flit from branch to branch," continued Hewet. "The world is
profoundly pleasant." He lay back on the bed, upon his arms.
"I wonder if it's really nice to be as vague as you are?" asked Hirst,
looking at him. "It's the lack of continuity--that's what's so odd bout
you," he went on. "At the age of twenty-seven, which is nearly thirty,
you seem to have drawn no conclusions. A party of old women excites you
still as though you were three."
Hewet contemplated the angular young man who was neatly brushing the
rims of his toe-nails into the fire-place in silence for a moment.
"I respect you, Hirst," he remarked.
"I envy you--some things," said Hirst. "One: your capacity for not
thinking; two: people like you better than they like me. Women like you,
I suppose."
"I wonder whether that isn't really what matters most?" said Hewet.
Lying now flat on the bed he waved his hand in vague circles above him.
"Of course it is," said Hirst. "But that's not the difficulty. The
difficulty is, isn't it, to find an appropriate object?"
"There are no female hens in your circle?" asked Hewet.
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