Bernick: Very likely she is. But I want to have a little talk with you, too.
Rorlund: With the greatest of pleasure, Mr. Bernick. But what is the matter with you? You look quite pale and upset.
Bernick: Really? Do I? Well, what else could you expect--a man so loaded with responsibilities as I am? There is all my own big business--and now the planning of this railway.--But tell me something, Mr. Rorlund, let me put a question to you.
Rorlund: With pleasure, Mr. Bernick.
Bernick: It is about a thought that has occurred to me. Suppose a man is face to face with an undertaking which will concern the welfare of thousands, and suppose it should be necessary to make a sacrifice of one--?
Rorlund: What do you mean?
Bernick: For example, suppose a man were thinking of starting a large factory. He knows for certain--because all his experience has taught him so--that sooner or later a toll of human life will be exacted in the working of that factory.
Rorlund: Yes, that is only too probable.
Bernick: Or, say a man embarks on a mining enterprise. He takes into his service fathers of families and young men in the first flush of their youth. Is it not quite safe to predict that all of them will not come out of it alive?
Rorlund: Yes, unhappily that is quite true.