“They seem unutterably, unutterably sad,” said Ursula, out of a passionate throat.
“I don’t think they are that. They just take it for granted.”
“What do they take for granted?”
“This—the pits and the place altogether.”
“Why don’t they alter it?” she passionately protested.
“They believe they must alter themselves to fit the pits and the place, rather than alter the pits and the place to fit themselves. It is easier,” he said.
“And you agree with them,” burst out his niece, unable to bear it. “You think like they do—that living human beings must be taken and adapted to all kinds of horrors. We could easily do without the pits.”
He smiled, uncomfortably, cynically. Ursula felt again the revolt of hatred from him.
“I suppose their lives are not really so bad,” said Winifred Inger, superior to the Zolaesque tragedy.
He turned with his polite, distant attention.