With a renewed impulse to move about, he strode toward the bay-window, where he stood for a few seconds, looking out and trying to co-ordinate his thoughts. Wheeling round again, he drew up a small chair close to hers, seating himself sidewise, with his arm resting on the back. He looked like a man anxious to explain himself.
"You're blaming me, I think, because I don't take Evie's defection more to heart. Isn't that so?"
"I'm not blaming you. I may be a little surprised at it."
"You wouldn't be surprised at it, if you knew all I've been through. It's difficult to explain to you—"
"There's no reason why you should try."
"But I want to try. I want you to know. You see," he pursued, speaking slowly, as if searching for the right words—"you see, it's largely a question of progress—of growth. Trouble has two stages. In the first, you think it hard luck that you should have to meet it. In the second, you see that, having met it, and gone through it, you come out into a region of big experience, where everything is larger and nobler than you thought it was before. Now, you'd probably think me blatant if I said that I feel myself emerging into—that."
"No, I shouldn't. As a matter of fact, I know you're doing it."
"Well, then, having got there—out into that new kind of world"—he sketched the vision with one of his Latin gestures—"I discover that—for one reason or another—poor little Evie has stayed on the far side of it. She couldn't pass the first gate with me, or the second, or the third, to say nothing of those I have still to go through. You know I'm not criticising, or finding fault with her, don't you?"
She assured him of that.
"And yet, I must go on, you see. There's no waiting or turning back for me, any more than for a dying man. No matter who goes or who stays, I must press forward. If Evie can't make the journey with me, I can only feel relieved that she's able to slip out of it—but I must still go on. I can't look back; I can't even be sorry—because I'm coming into the new, big land. You see what I mean?"