The hand lying on the arm of his chair closed and unclosed itself slowly, without effort. "Can't you?" he asked abruptly.
"Not sincerely, not naturally," she answered. "I think of you."
She saw a spasm of pain pass suddenly into his face, a too ardent leaping, as it were, of the blood.
"You would understand things better," he said presently, after a pause in which she felt that she had witnessed a quick, sharp struggle, "if you had ever watched the slow moral poisoning of cocaine—or had ever been," he added with a harsh, grating sound in his usually quiet voice, "at the mercy of such a damned brute as Brady."
His sudden rage shook her like a strong wind, and she liked him the better for his relapse into an elemental passion in the cause of righteousness.
"I'm glad you cursed him," she remarked simply. "I like it!"
He smiled a little grimly. "So do I."
"And yet how terrible it is," she said, with an effort to work herself into a sentiment of pity for Connie which she did not feel. "It makes the whole world look full of horror."
"Well, it's a comfort to think I never argued that it wasn't a hard road," he returned, with the whimsical humour which seemed only to deepen her sense of tragedy. "I've merely maintained that the only excuse for living is to make it a little easier."
He rose as he spoke and held out his hand with a smile. "So long as you're happy, don't bother to think of me," he said; "but if there ever comes a time when you need a sword-arm, let me know."