“That is an ‘if’ in which my belief is somewhat feeble,” she answered confidently.
“Supposing I—er, supposing a man had lost all he had in the world, and that beyond all possibility of recovery—what then?”
“He might remedy the loss. Energy, some resourcefulness, and a great deal of common sense, constitute not a bad foundation for a fresh start—say in a country like this.”
The cool, practical, matter-of-fact tone of this reply fairly startled me—and then—Great Scott! the remarks that Pentridge had let fall during our conversation a day or two back, gratifying to myself in that they reflected the estimation in which I seemed to be held, flashed across my mind. Beryl’s words were spoken with a purpose—were meant to be taken home, and with the idea came another. Could I, without anything definite passing between us, turn the key of her mind as regarded herself?
“Yes, he might remedy the loss—after a time,” I said, still pretending to work with the spade—still not looking at her. “After a time. But what if that time were too late?”
“Could it ever be?”
“Why, yes. Because by that time what would have made success worth striving for might be no longer attainable; might have passed out of reach irrevocably and for ever.”
She did not answer. In the tensity of the silence the clink of my spade in the dry dusty furrow seemed to my wrought-up mind to sound as with a loud hammering. A network of sunlight, from the deep blue of an early winter sky, fell through the nearly denuded boughs upon the earth around, and the screech of crickets and the far-off melodious shout of a hoepoe hardly seemed to break the stillness. What would she answer? Or would she even understand? And as to this I almost hoped not, for here had I, under cover of this veiled talk, been saying to her in effect: “Beryl, I am a ruined man, a beggar, but—how would it be to throw away the best years of your life and wait for me on the off chance of my ever being able to rise substantially above that most unenviable position?”
“Of course I am only putting a case,” I appended with conscious lameness.
“Oh, of course,” she answered readily. “But, supposing—”