“No,” said Ethelbert simply.
Bertha looked after him as he walked off a few steps.
“Is that man your friend?” she said sharply. “I understand not all your speaking words, but full well I know your wisdom in the thought of it, and well I know that the body is as a beast if the spirit shall not command what it will do. He thinks me a fool—too much fool to talk your wisdom-words. I are not fool. I choose this day. This head shall say, ‘No more of beer and oder tings to my body. It has said so before this time, many days, but now, the body must!’ Now then, I, Bertha, ask you: Do you think I am a fool?”
“No,” said Ethelbert.
“Well, I shall be a fool if I steals away my brains some more.”
“I think you will never do that any more. Brain force can be lost and wasted; or it can be treasured up, englobed delightsomely. Now, Bertha, take this rosebud and try to live as healthfully and sweet as roses do. Bertha, gather up your grass for the rabbits, and make the little things clean and happy, and then you can read your papers tonight, and come and get some more. Here is a pencil, so you can mark any little place you don’t quite understand, and I will tell you about it. Good-night.”
“Good-night, Miss Daksha,” said Bertha, looking back enviously at Reginald, who stood striking the rosebush with his cane, and not yet dismissed.
“You can’t put that rose together again,” said Ethelbert.
“Who cares?” said he roughly. For, as Ethelbert would not flatter him, he unconsciously proposed not to flatter her. You see he had felt full of the ashes of the past; and those ashes, like a volatile alkali, needed only an acid admixture to ensure a sudden fermentation of soul. The truths which had seemed so sweet to Bertha had been acid to him, and a foam of wrath was choking him as he sputtered: “Who cares?”
“That is the question,” said Ethelbert, gathering up the shattered rose: “Who cares?”