"You take a hard view of life," she said.
"Life has not been very bright for me," he answered. "But I own that I have not cultivated my garden. And now it is too late: the weeds have sprung up everywhere. Once or twice I have thought lately that I would begin to clear away the weeds, but I have not the courage now. And perhaps it does not matter much."
"I think it does matter," she said gently. "But I am no better than you, for I have not cultivated my garden."
"It would not be such a difficult business for you as for me," he said, smiling sadly.
They left the restaurant, and sauntered out together.
"And to-morrow you will be gone," he said.
"I shall miss you," Bernardine said.
"That is simply a question of time," he remarked. "I shall probably miss you at first. But we adjust ourselves easily to altered circumstances: mercifully. A few days, a few weeks at most, and then that state of becoming accustomed, called by pious folk, resignation."
"Then you think that the every-day companionship, the every-day exchange of thoughts and ideas, counts for little or nothing?" she asked.
"That is about the colour of it," he answered, in his old gruff way.