“Whatever I can,” he said. “I don’t really care very much. I want to make a good show, that’s all—earn a living.”
“Bertie, dear boy, with your intelligence you ought to aim higher than making a living. Isn’t there something you can put your heart into? Some sort of work you could really—”
“Not any more, Mammy. It’s this ice-cap.”
“What do you mean?”
“You ought to know. Old Lance talks enough about it.... It’s going to cover the earth—a new glacial period—going to destroy life on this planet.”
He rose and began walking about the room and when he spoke again, his voice had changed.
“I’ve always wanted to be useful. I’m so dam’ sorry for people—for almost everyone. I welcomed Evolution like a long lost brother. I thought I could do something to help it, perhaps.... I imagined us all evoluting along into something magnificent. I didn’t see any end to our possibilities. I agreed with Al that, if we got together, we could make a heavenly world out of this.... But then Lance sprang this ice-cap on me. And—”
He paused.
“It was something pretty much like despair.... Nothing seemed any use. The happier we got, the less would we want to be frozen, don’t you see?”
She was terribly touched by the pain in his voice, by the suffering she divined in his queer soul.