“Yes, more or less. You can’t deny we are only like midges, coming from nowhere, and vanishing nowhere; or at best, ants hurrying and scurrying over an ant-hill. ‘Life is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’”
“Ah, no! no!” she cried, turning to him with a beseeching look in her eyes. “If that were so, where would be the use of all its sacrifices, and conquests, and nobleness?”
“Where is the use of them?” in callous tones.
She looked at him blankly a moment, then got up and walked to the water’s edge, feeling almost as if he had struck her.
After a moment he followed, and stood beside her, idly tossing pebbles into the water.
“Take my advice, Eileen,” he said, “and don’t get into the way of caring too much about things. It’s a mistake. Later on, your feelings will only turn, and hit you in the face.”
“And what is it your favourite poet, Browning, says?” she repeated half to herself—
“One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.”
“It sounded well,” he sneered. “No doubt if I were to write a novel it would be full of beautiful sentiments that sounded well—and I should care that for them in my heart,” and he snapped his fingers carelessly.
She looked up and descried Jack and Paddy coming over the Loch toward them.