'No, but you must have meant that there was a glimmer of hope?' She insisted urgently, turning a strained, agitated face up to his.
'If you'll swear to think it no more than a glimmer—a glimmer let it be.'
'You always tell me the truth. I'll remember—a glimmer.'
'No more,' he insisted, with a marked pertinacity.
'No more, on my honour,' said Trix Trevalla.
She had gone towards the door; he followed till he was by the little table. He stood there and picked up the red book in his hand.
'No more than a glimmer,' he repeated, 'because things may go all wrong in the end still.'
'Not if they depend on you!' she cried, with a gaiety inspired by the hope which he did not altogether forbid, and by the trust that she had in him.
'Even though they depended altogether on me.' He flung the book down and came close to her. 'If they go right, I shall thank heaven for sending you here to-day. And now—I have a thing that I must do.'
'Yes, I've taken a terrible lot of your time. Good-bye.' She yielded to her impulse towards intimacy, towards knowing what he did, how he spent his time. 'Are you going to work? Are you going to try and invent things?'