“As long as you like.”
“I have no likes or dislikes now, Renny, and only one hate.”
“We won’t talk of that.”
“Not now. This field is the neutral ground. Once outside it, the armistice ends.”
“Duke!”
“How can it be otherwise, Renny, my old friend? Are you going to back me in the chase? Unless you do, you must see that it is impossible for us to come together.”
“I see nothing—feel nothing, but a vast, interminable sorrow, Duke.”
“And I—you have a gentle hand, Renny. So had she. She bound up my wrist for me once, when I had crushed it in the galley-puller. Shall we recall those days?”
My heart swelled to hear him in this softened mood, as I thought. Alas! It was only a brief interval of lucidity in his madness.
“Ah, if we could look beyond!” I finally answered, with a deep sigh.