"Don't you get tired," she put to him, "of just sitting round here?"
He turned to her his small neat finely-wrinkled face, of an extreme yellowish pallor and which somehow suggested at this end of time an empty glass that had yet held for years so much strong wine that a faint golden tinge still lingered on from it. "I can't get any more tired than I am already." His tone was flat, weak and so little charged with petulance that it betrayed the long habit of an almost exasperating mildness. This effect, at the same time, so far from suggesting any positive tradition of civility was somehow that of a commonness instantly and peculiarly exposed. "It's a better place than ours," he added in a moment. "But I don't care." And then he went on: "I guess I'd be more tired in your position."
"Oh you know I'm never tired. And now," said Rosanna, "I'm too interested."
"Well then, so am I. Only for me it ain't a position."
His daughter still hovered with her vague look about. "Well, if it's one for me I feel it's a good one. I mean it's the right one."
Mr. Gaw shook his little foot with renewed intensity, but his irony was not gay. "The right one isn't always a good one. But ain't the question what his is going to be?"
"Mr. Fielder's? Why, of course," said Rosanna quietly. "That's the whole interest."
"Well then, you've got to fix it."
"I consider that I have fixed it—I mean if we can hold out."
"Well"—and Mr. Gaw shook on—"I guess I can. It's pleasant here," he went on, "even if it is funny."