"You speak like a Calvinist," she answered, rather ruffled, "with the quintessence of self-protectiveness; and I don't believe you mean a word you say."
"My dear young woman," he said, "we are not living in a poetry book bound with gilt edges. We are living in a paper-backed volume of prose. Be sensible. Don't ruffle yourself on account of other people. Don't even trouble to criticize them; it is only a nuisance to yourself. All this simply points back to my first suggestion: fill up your time with some hobby, cheese-mites or the influenza bacillus, and then you will be quite content to let people be neglected, lonely, and to die. You will look upon it as an ordinary and natural process."
She waved her hand as though to stop him.
"There are days," she said, "when I can't bear to talk with you. And this is one of them."
"I am sorry," he answered, quite gently for him. And he moved away from her, and started for his usual lonely walk.
Bernardine turned home, intending to go to see Mr. Reffold. He had become quite attached to her, and looked forward eagerly to her visits. He said her voice was gentle and her manner quiet; there was no bustling vitality about her to irritate his worn nerves. He was probably an empty-headed, stupid fellow; but it was none the less sad to see him passing away.
He called her 'Little Brick.' He said that no other epithet suited her so exactly. He was quite satisfied now that she was not paid for coming to see him. As for the reading, no one could read the Sporting and Dramatic News and the Era so well as Little Brick. Sometimes he spoke with her about his wife, but only in general terms of bitterness, and not always complainingly. She listened and said nothing.
"I'm a chap that wants very little," he said once. "Those who want little, get nothing."
That was all he said, but Bernardine knew to whom he referred.
To-day, as Bernardine was on her way back to the Kurhaus, she was thinking constantly of Mrs. Reffold, and wondering whether she ought to be made to realize that her husband was becoming rapidly worse. Whilst engrossed with this thought, a long train of sledges and toboggans passed her. The sound of the bells and the noisy merriment made her look up, and she saw beautiful Mrs. Reffold amongst the pleasure-seekers.