"You can be happy in any place
whatever," she remarked to Tussie on the Monday, when he was
expressing fears as to her future comfort; "absolutely any place will
do--a tub, a dingle, the top of a pillar--any place at all, if only
your soul is on fire."
"Of course you can," cried Tussie, ready to kiss her feet.
"And look how comfortable my cottage seems," said Priscilla, "directly
one compares it with things like tubs."
"Yes, yes," agreed Tussie, "I do see that it's enough for free spirits
to live in. I was only wondering whether--whether bodies would find it
enough."
"Oh bother bodies," said Priscilla airily.
But Tussie could not bring himself to bother bodies if they included
her own; on the contrary, the infatuated young man thought it would be
difficult sufficiently to cherish a thing so supremely precious and
sweet. And each time he went home after having been in the frugal
baldness of Creeper Cottage he hated the superfluities of his own
house more and more, he accused himself louder and louder of being
mean-spirited, effeminate, soft, vulgar, he loathed himself for living
embedded in such luxury while she, the dear and lovely one, was ready
cheerfully to pack her beauty into a tub if needs be, or let it be
weather-beaten on a pillar for thirty years if by so doing she could
save her soul alive.
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