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too. I care for nothing but you.’
    Boris did not answer.
    ‘Aren’t I free?’ asked Lola.
    ‘That’s not the same thing.’
    Too difficult to explain. Lola was a victim, she had no luck, and she appealed too much to the emotions. Which was not in her favour. Besides, she took heroin. That wasn’t a bad thing, in one sense: indeed it was quite a good thing, in principle: Boris had talked to Ivich about it, and they had both agreed that it was a good thing. But there were ways of doing it: if one took it to destroy oneself, either in despair or by way of emphasizing one’s freedom, that was entirely commendable. But Lola took it with greedy abandonment, it was her form of relaxation. It didn’t even intoxicate her.
    ‘You make me laugh,’ said Lola in a dry voice. ‘It’s a habit of yours to put Delarue above everybody else, as a matter of principle. Because you know, between ourselves, which is the freer, he or I: he has a home of his own, a fixed salary, and a definite pension: he lives like a petty official. And then, into the bargain, there’s that affair of his you told me about, that female who never goes out — what more does he want? No one could be freer than that. As for me, I’ve just a few old frocks, I’m alone, I live in an hotel, and I don’t even know whether I shall have a job for the summer.’
    ‘That’s different,’ repeated Boris.
    He was annoyed. Lola didn’t bother about freedom. She was getting excited about it that evening because she wanted to defeat Mathieu on his own ground.
    ‘I could skin you, you little beast, when you’re like that. What’s different, eh?’
    ‘Well, you’re free without wanting to be,’ he explained, ‘it just happens so, that’s all. But Mathieu’s freedom is based on reason.’
    ‘I still don’t understand,’ said Lola, shaking her head.
    ‘Well, he doesn’t care a curse about his apartment: he lives there just as he would live anywhere else, and I’ve got the feeling that he doesn’t care much about his girl. He stays with her because he must sleep with someone. His freedom isn’t visible, it’s inside him.’
    Lola had an absent air, he felt he must hurt her a bit just to jostle her around, and he went on: ‘Look here, you’re too fond of me: he would never let himself get caught like that’
    ‘Oho!’ cried Lola indignantly. ‘I’m too fond of you, am I? — you little toad. And don’t you think he’s a bit too fond of your sister, eh? You’d only got to watch him the other night at the Sumatra.’
    ‘Of Ivich? You make me sick.’
    Lola flung him a sneering grin, and the smoke suddenly went to Boris’s head. A moment passed, and then the band happened to launch into the St James’s Infirmary , and Boris wanted to dance.
    ‘Shall we dance this?’
    They danced. Lola had closed her eyes, and he could hear her quick breathing. The little pansy had got up and went across to ask the dancer from the Java for a dance. Boris reflected that he would soon see him from near-by and was pleased. Lola was heavy in his arms: she danced well, and she smelt nice, but she was too heavy. Boris thought that he would sooner dance with Ivich. Ivich danced magnificently: and he told himself that Ivich ought to learn the castanets. After which, Lola’s scent and smell banished all further thought. He pressed her to him, and breathed hard. She opened her eyes, and looked at him intently.
    ‘Do you love me?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Boris, making a face.
    ‘Why do you make a face like that?’
    ‘Because — Oh, you annoy me.’
    ‘Why? It isn’t true that you love me?’
    ‘Yes it is.’
    ‘Why don’t you ever tell me so yourself? I always have to ask you.’
    ‘Because I don’t feel like it. It’s all rot: it’s the sort of thing that people don’t say.’
    ‘Does it annoy you when I say I love you?’
    ‘No, you can say it if you like. But you oughtn’t to ask me if I love you.’
    ‘It’s very seldom I ask you anything, darling.