'May-be,' he said. 'Though one knows all the time one's life isn't
really right, at the source. That's the humiliation. I don't see that
the illness counts so much, after that. One is ill because one doesn't
live properly--can't. It's the failure to live that makes one ill, and
humiliates one.'
'But do you fail to live?' she asked, almost jeering.
'Why yes--I don't make much of a success of my days. One seems always
to be bumping one's nose against the blank wall ahead.'
Ursula laughed. She was frightened, and when she was frightened she
always laughed and pretended to be jaunty.
'Your poor nose!' she said, looking at that feature of his face.
'No wonder it's ugly,' he replied.
She was silent for some minutes, struggling with her own
self-deception. It was an instinct in her, to deceive herself.
'But I'M happy--I think life is AWFULLY jolly,' she said.
'Good,' he answered, with a certain cold indifference.
She reached for a bit of paper which had wrapped a small piece of
chocolate she had found in her pocket, and began making a boat.
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