Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 5.pdf/262

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THE FOOD OF THE GODS

"So far? Isn't that all?"

"But they— If they want to part us———"

"What can they do?"

"I don't know. What can they do?"

"Who cares what they can do, or what they will do? I am yours and you are mine. What is there more than that? I am yours and you are mine—for ever. Do you think I will stop for their little rules, for their little prohibitions, their scarlet boards indeed!—and keep from you?"

"Yes. But still, what can they do?"

"You mean," he said, "what are we to do?"

"Yes."

"We? We can go on."

"But if they seek to prevent us?"

He clenched his hands. He looked round as if the little people were already coming to prevent them. Then turned away from her and looked about the world. "Yes," he said. "Your question was the right one. What can they do?"

"Here in this little land," she said and stopped.

He seemed to survey it all. "They are everywhere."

"But we might———"

"Whither?"

"We could go. We could swim the seas together. Beyond the seas———"

"I have never been beyond the seas."

"There are great and desolate mountains amidst which we should seem no more than little people, there are remote and deserted valleys, there are hidden lakes and snow-girdled uplands untrodden by the feet of men. There———"

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