They took their seats in silence, eating without interest whatever was set before them. Hindwood's sensations were those of a man who has given way to his emotions at a theatre. It was as though the lights had gone up, shaming him in public. There had been nothing to warrant his surrender to sentiment. He totaled up the accumulated incentives: he had witnessed a street-riot, people slain at the frontier, the hideous contrast between the death train and dancing—and last of all Varensky. But these things in themselves constituted no argument; the cause that lay behind them was still conjectural. As for Varensky, whatever he had said was unreliable. His wish was parent to his thought. He was a man born to stir up turbulences, which he considered it his mission to pacify. He was dangerous as a forest-fire: one spark of his wild idealism made the whole world lurid. In the breath of adversity he became a sheet of flame, destructive and self-destroying. His goal was the vanishing-point, in the No Man's Land between desire and things attainable.
Hindwood writhed at remembering the ease with which his judgment had been unseated. In his weakness he had given a promise, which it would be folly to fulfill and dishonorable to withdraw. He glanced across at Santa. How was she taking this return to normality?
She met his eyes with passionate adoration. “It was god-like of you.”
He pretended ignorance. “What?”
“Your self-denial. You've given up everything—Anna, ambition, money—all the things you worship.”
He assumed a judicial expression. “Perhaps not. It mayn't be necessary.”
“But it will.”
“If it is,” he said, “I shall stick to my contract. But I've reason to believe we've exaggerated.”
“Would to God we had!”
Her fervor disturbed him. He leaned across the table. “You don't mean to tell me you accept this bogey story about starving millions marching? There's a sense of security this morning. Surely you must have felt it?”