all he knows about it. There it is — throbbing, sighing, singing, thrilling love. But the State can control license.”

“It is a complicated free love that you stand for,” Hancock criticised. “True, and for the reason that man, living in society, is a most complicated animal.”

“But there are men, lovers, who would die at the loss of their loved one,” Leo surprised the table by his initiative. “They would die if she died, they would die — oh so more quickly — if she lived and loved another.”

“Well, they’ll have to keep on dying as they have always died in the past,” Dick answered grimly. “And no blame attaches anywhere for their deaths. We are so made that our hearts sometimes stray.”