“You mean—that it isn’t any use?” he asked hoarsely.
She looked at him, and he did not press for words.
“Is it—the missioner?” he asked.
Her head sank a little lower, but still she did not answer. Gilbert Deyes drew himself upright. He remembered the cigarette which had burnt itself out between his fingers, and he carefully re-lit it.
“I am now,” he said, blowing a cloud of blue smoke into the heart of a yellow rose, “confronted by a somewhat hackneyed, but always interesting problem. Do I care for you enough—or too little—or too much—to continue your friend, when my aid will probably ensure the loss of you for ever! It is not a problem to be hurried over, this!”
“There is no need for haste,” she answered. “I know you, Gilbert, better than you know yourself. I am very sure that you will help me—if you can.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You are a good deal surer of me than I am of myself,” he answered. “Why should I give you up to a boy who hasn’t learnt yet the first lesson of life?”
“What is it?” she asked. “I am not clear that I have graduated.”
“You can see it blazoned over the portals as you pass through the gates,” he answered, “‘Abandon all enthusiasm, ye who enter here.’ The pathways of life are heaped with the corpses of those who will not understand. Do you think that this boy will fare better than the rest, with his preaching and lectures and East End work? It’s sheer impertinence! Man, the individual, is only a pawn in the game of life. Why should he imagine that he can alter the things that are?”