"Then you will go there now for my sake," she said deliberately.
He looked up quickly.
"Little Bernardine," he cried, "my Little Bernardine—is it possible that you care what becomes of me?"
She had been leaning against the counter, and now she raised herself, and stood erect, a proud, dignified little figure.
"Yes, I do care," she said simply, and with true earnestness. "I care with all my heart. And even if I did not care, you know you would not be free. No one is free. You know that better than I do. We do not belong to ourselves: there are countless people depending on us, people whom we have never seen, and whom we never shall see. What we do, decides what they will be."
He still did not speak.
"But it is not for those others that I plead," she continued. "I plead for myself. I can't spare you, indeed, indeed I can't spare you! . . ."
Her voice trembled, but she went on bravely:
"So you will go back to the mountains," she said. "You will live out your life like a man. Others may prove themselves cowards, but the Disagreeable Man has a better part to play."
He still did not speak. Was it that he could not trust himself to words? But in that brief time, the thoughts which passed through his mind were such as to overwhelm him. A picture rose up before him: a picture of a man and woman leading their lives together, each happy in the other's love; not a love born of fancy, but a love based on comradeship and true understanding of the soul. The picture faded, and the Disagreeable Man raised his eyes and looked at the little figure standing near him.