“Listen, Rivarez; I don't understand a word of all this metaphysical stuff, but I do understand one thing: If you feel about it that way, you are not in a fit state to go. The surest way to get taken is to go with a conviction that you will be taken. You must be ill, or out of sorts somehow, to get maggots of that kind into your head. Suppose I go instead of you? I can do any practical work there is to be done, and you can send a message to your men, explaining———”
“And let you get killed instead? That would be very clever.”
“Oh, I'm not likely to get killed! They don't know me as they do you. And, besides, even if I did———”
He stopped, and the Gadfly looked up with a slow, inquiring gaze. Martini's hand dropped by his side.
“She very likely wouldn't miss me as much as she would you,” he said in his most matter-of-fact voice. “And then, besides, Rivarez, this is public business, and we have to look at it from the point of view of utility—the greatest good of the greatest number. Your 'final value'—-isn't that what the economists call it?—is higher than mine; I have brains enough to see that, though I haven't any cause to be particularly fond of you. You are a bigger man than I am; I'm not sure that you are a better one, but there's more of you, and your death would be a greater loss than mine.”
From the way he spoke he might have been discussing the value of shares on the Exchange. The Gadfly looked up, shivering as if with cold.
“Would you have me wait till my grave opens of itself to swallow me up?
“If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride——
Look here, Martini, you and I are talking nonsense.”
“You are, certainly,” said Martini gruffly.