Reardon walked the length of the room and back again.
‘Your mother has no money to lend, dear, and your brother would do it so unwillingly that we can’t lay ourselves under such an obligation.’
‘Yet it will come to that, you know,’ remarked Amy, calmly.
‘No, it shall not come to that. I must and will get something done long before Christmas. If only you—’
He came and took one of her hands.
‘If only you will give me more sympathy, dearest. You see, that’s one side of my weakness. I am utterly dependent upon you. Your kindness is the breath of life to me. Don’t refuse it!’
‘But I have done nothing of the kind.’
‘You begin to speak very coldly. And I understand your feeling of disappointment. The mere fact of your urging me to do anything that will sell is a proof of bitter disappointment. You would have looked with scorn at anyone who talked to me like that two years ago. You were proud of me because my work wasn’t altogether common, and because I had never written a line that was meant to attract the vulgar. All that’s over now. If you knew how dreadful it is to see that you have lost your hopes of me!’
‘Well, but I haven’t—altogether,’ Amy replied, meditatively. ‘I know very well that, if you had a lot of money, you would do better things than ever.’
‘Thank you a thousand times for saying that, my dearest.’