“What do you propose to do?” he said.
The old maddening question that she had had to answer so often. She tried to summon the old battling spirit, but it did not respond to her call. Her pride had been flung in the dust. What did she propose to do? Was there anything left that could ever restore her self-respect?
With a gesture that was quite unconsciously pathetic, she turned and went to the window in silence.
Rotherby smoked without speaking for a few seconds. If he felt the appeal of her hopelessness, he did not show it.
It was she who spoke first at length, without turning, and it was as though she uttered the words to herself with the dreary persistence of despair.
“I have got to begin again.”
“What are you going to do?” said Rotherby.
There was a quality of ruthlessness in his voice that pierced her despair. She swung round abruptly and faced him. There was majesty in her bearing, though with it was mingled the desperation of the hunted animal at bay.
“I will work,” she said. “I am not afraid of work. And I don’t care what I do.”
He came and joined her at the window. “Yes, it sounds all right,” he said. “But you haven’t the strength, and you know it.”