Another pause. And then Gareth gave the same stolid assent. "No. I suppose it isn't."
He was waiting for her to remark that the idea of the central theme had been hers as well as his; and that in her case she had not spoilt it utterly....
"And the last third of the book is—futile!" concluded Pat's clear young voice, without any palliative or mercy.
He sprang upright, pushing her away from him.
"It isn't! It isn't!... Or do you think that I overestimated it on purpose, so that you should ... I suppose you think I talked big about it on purpose?"
She too was on her feet by now, surveying him scornfully.
"Oh, if you had wanted to be treated like a baby, and given sugar-plums only——"
And then suddenly she remembered that just to-night she must be very good to him—because of that doubt in her heart which had been finally and unquestioningly acknowledged as a certainty. Just to-night she must be very pitiful with him ... she could not quite answer for herself in the future.
"Dear old man, I'm an ignorant brute, and ought to be kicked for my bumptiousness. But I imagined you would rather have heard straight out what I really thought. The first twenty chapters are so first-class that it would have been a miracle if you could have kept it up all through. Honestly and truly, Gareth, I expect it will do tremendously well when it appears."
He put both his hands on her shoulders, smiling rather wryly.