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"They ht say they weren't either"

"Well, if everybody said it, there wouldn't be a nation But

I should still be myself," she asserted brilliantly

"You wouldn't be yourself if there were no nation"

"Why not?"

"Because you'd just be a prey to everybody and anybody"

"How a prey?"

"They'd coot"

"Well, they couldn't take much even then I don't care what

they take I'd rather have a robber who carriedyou can buy"

"That's because you are a romanticist"

"Yes, I ao away, and people just living in the houses It's all so stiff

and stupid I hate soldiers, they are stiff and wooden What do

you fight for, really?"

"I would fight for the nation"

"For all that, you aren't the nation What would you do for

yourself?"

"I belong to the nation and must do my duty by the

nation"

"But when it didn't need your services in

particular--when there is no fighting? What would you do

then?"

He was irritated

"I would do what everybody else does"

"What?"

"Nothing I would be in readiness for when I was needed"

The answer came in exasperation

"It seems to me," she answered, "as if you weren't

anybody--as if there weren't anybody there, where you are

Are you anybody, really? You see to me"