“Ah, don’t!” she said. “Don’t! Let it come! It will be easier to bear afterwards. And what do I matter?”
She felt a great shiver go through him. His hold upon her hand was as the clutch of a drowning man, and suddenly she felt his tears, slow and scalding, oozing between her fingers. He bent his head lower and lower, striving with himself, and she instinctively turned her eyes away, averting them from his agony.
So, for what seemed an interminable space of time, they remained. Then at last the man spoke, jerkily, with difficulty, yet with returning self-mastery.
“It’s no good crying out. It’s got to be endured to the end.” He paused; then: “I don’t often cry out,” he said and she thought she caught a note that was almost of appeal in his voice.
“We are all human,” she said.
“Are we?” He raised himself abruptly with the words, and leaned back in his chair, looking straight up at her, her hand still grasped in his. “Are you human?” he said, as if challenging her. “I don’t believe you are.”
His eyes were burning. They had the strained look that comes from lack of sleep. A brief misgiving assailed her, but she put it firmly away. She met his look unflinching.
“Yes, I am human,” she said.
“Then how you must hate me!” he said.
She shook her head in silence.