“She’s suffering,” he cried. “She’s literally heartbroken! She is! It’s real! And what has she had to make up for it? Oh, it’s monstrous! One thing she says keeps ringing in my ears. That gray-haired woman, a human being my own age—the silly, tragic, childish thing she keeps saying—‘I only did all those things—I only wanted all those things—because there was nothing else!’ Nothing else!” He turned on his host with a fierce “Good God! She’s right. What else was there ever for—for any woman of her class—”
Rankin pushed his shivering, fidgeting visitor into a chair and, laying a big hand on his shoulder, said with a faint smile: “Maybe I can divert your mind for an instant with a story—another one of my great-aunt’s, only it’s an old one this time; you’ve probably heard it—about the old man who said to his wife on his death-bed, ‘I’ve tried to be a good husband to you, dear. It’s been hard on my teeth sometimes, but I’ve always eaten the crusts and let you have the soft bread.’ You remember what the wife’s answer was?”
“No,” said the doctor frowning.
“It’s the epitome of tragedy. She said, ‘Oh, my dear, and I like crusts so!’”
The doctor stared into the fire. “Do you mean—there’s work for them?”
“I mean work for them,” repeated the younger man.
The word echoed in a long silence.
“It’s the most precious possession we have,” said Rankin finally. “We ought to share more evenly.”
The doctor rose to go. “Generally I forget that we’re of different generations,” he said with apparent irrelevance, “but there are times when I feel it keenly.”
“Why now especially?” Rankin wondered. “I’ve stated a doctrine that is yours, too.”