"That we are brought here with all this inside us"—she drew her doubled hand across her breast like one in pain—"all this, and with the destiny of brutes—cheated a little while with gladness while we're children—"
"That's a superstition, too. The happiness of children is more than half an illusion of the old. I remember. Others have forgotten; that's the difference."
"No, no; I remember, too!" The raised voice was half challenge, half appeal. "I was happy, and I'm happy still, except when you—" She broke off near the brink of tears. "And I mean to be happy. Oh, it's a good, good world, and I'm glad I'm here."
"I'm glad you're here."
"But if you were right"—she looked out with a vague fear to the fading west—"if all this keen consciousness existed just to be tortured a little while, and then flung down in the dark—if that is all"—the eager face grew white—"then human life's an outrage."
Silence for a moment, and then in a low voice came the words:
"It is an outrage."
"Don't say so, Ethan; I can't bear it."
"Oh yes, we can all bear it; and by so much we ephemera get back our lost significance, our sovereignty."
She looked up.