"But surely you don't think we have a right to take our own lives?" asked Lola, turning to Drewitt.
"If any one gave you a hat that didn't suit you, would you wear it?" enquired Drewitt.
"Noooooo," she said hesitatingly.
"Then why should you continue to wear the mantle of existence when it doesn't fit?"
"But life is so different," she protested. "It's not ours to dispose of."
"Suppose Richard put a rhinoceros In your bath-room, would you hesitate to have it removed because it was not yours to dispose of?" Drewitt looked at her with a smile.
"How absurd," she laughed.
"That," said Drewitt, "is a feminine confession of defeat."
"Schopenhauer says that when the sum total of misery exceeds the sum total of happiness suicide is inevitable," said Beresford, who had been listening with interest to Drewitt's exposition on the ethics of suicide.
"Never quote Schopenhauer to a woman, Richard," said Drewitt. "If she's heard of him she doesn't like him; if she hasn't heard of him she won't know whether he's a Bolshevist or a German helmet."
"But," said Beresford, turning to Lola, "do you mean that when a man sees all that he most desires in life quite out of his reach, that he must go on making the best of things?"
