The Wonderful Year. William John Locke

lunatic. Fancy living here for the rest of one’s days and concentrating one’s soul on human stomachs.”

      “What do you mean, Corinna?”

      “Isn’t that what woman’s domestic life comes to? She must fill her husband’s stomach properly or he’ll beat her or run off with somebody else, and she must fill her babies’ stomachs properly or they’ll get cramps and convulsions and bilious attacks and die. It was a beautiful dream. But the reality would drive me stick, stark, staring mad.”

      “My ideas of married life,” said Martin sagely, “are quite different.”

      “Of course!” she cried. “You’re one of the creatures with the stomach.”

      “I’ve never been aware of it,” said Martin.

      “It strikes me you’re too good for this world,” said Corinna.

      Martin rolled a cigarette from a brown packet of Maryland tobacco—his supply of English ‘Woodbines’ had long since given out.

      “I have my ideals as to love—and so forth,” said he.

      “And so have I. ‘All for Love and the World Well Lost.’ That’s the title of an old play, isn’t it? I can understand it. I would give my soul for it. But it happens once in a blue moon. Meanwhile one has to live. And connubiality and maternity in a little lost hole in Nowhere like this aren’t life.”

      “What the dickens is life?” asked Martin.

      But her definition he did not hear, for the vast figure of Bigourdin loomed in the doorway of the salle-à-manger.

      “I wish you good night,” said he.

      Martin rose and looked at his watch. “I think it’s time to go to bed.”

      “So do I,” yawned Corinna.