“Yes,” said Aaron slowly, “while you only stand and talk about it.  But when you’ve got no chance to talk about it—­and when you’ve got to live—­you don’t possess your soul, neither in patience nor in peace, but any devil that likes possesses you and does what it likes with you, while you fridge yourself and fray yourself out like a worn rag.”

“I don’t care,” said Lilly, “I’m learning to possess my soul in patience and in peace, and I know it.  And it isn’t a negative Nirvana either.  And if Tanny possesses her own soul in patience and peace as well—­and if in this we understand each other at last—­then there we are, together and apart at the same time, and free of each other, and eternally inseparable.  I have my Nirvana—­and I have it all to myself.  But more than that.  It coincides with her Nirvana.”

“Ah, yes,” said Aaron.  “But I don’t understand all that word-splitting.”

“I do, though.  You learn to be quite alone, and possess your own soul in isolation—­and at the same time, to be perfectly WITH someone else—­ that’s all I ask.”

“Sort of sit on a mountain top, back to back with somebody else, like a couple of idols.”

“No—­because it isn’t a case of sitting—­or a case of back to back.  It’s what you get to after a lot of fighting and a lot of sensual fulfilment.  And it never does away with the fighting and with the sensual passion.  It flowers on top of them, and it would never flower save on top of them.”

“What wouldn’t?”

“The possessing one’s own soul—­and the being together with someone else in silence, beyond speech.”

“And you’ve got them?”

“I’ve got a BIT of the real quietness inside me.”

“So has a dog on a mat.”

“So I believe, too.”

“Or a man in a pub.”

“Which I don’t believe.”

“You prefer the dog?”

“Maybe.”

There was silence for a few moments.

“And I’m the man in the pub,” said Aaron.

“You aren’t the dog on the mat, anyhow,”

“And you’re the idol on the mountain top, worshipping yourself.”

“You talk to me like a woman, Aaron.”

“How do you talk to ME, do you think?”

“How do I?”

“Are the potatoes done?”

Lilly turned quickly aside, and switched on the electric light. 
Everything changed.  Aaron sat still before the fire, irritated. 
Lilly went about preparing the supper.

The room was pleasant at night.  Two tall, dark screens hid the two beds.  In front, the piano was littered with music, the desk littered with papers.  Lilly went out on to the landing, and set the chops to grill on the gas stove.  Hastily he put a small table on the hearth-rug, spread it with a blue-and-white cloth, set plates and glasses.  Aaron did not move.  It was not his nature to concern himself with domestic matters—­and Lilly did it best alone.