"Something to do. That's what you want." She turned towards him, looking at him with a little smile and yet with grave seriousness in her eyes. "Oh! Mr. Breton, why don't you? What is the use of sitting here month after month, doing nothing, just waiting for something to happen—something that can't happen unless you make it? Things don't fall into people's mouths just because they sit with them open."
He coloured. "Everybody's always scolding me," he said. "Christopher—you—everybody. Nobody understands—how difficult...."
He broke off. So intangible were his difficulties that no words would define them, and yet, God knew, they were real enough.
"I know—" she said, nodding her head. "It's the thought of them all at Portland Place that's holding you back. You began by fancying that you wanted to cut their throats, and you still wouldn't mind slaughtering them if only they in their turn would do something definite. It's their doing nothing that just holds you up. But really as long as your grandmother's alive I'm afraid that it's no good thinking of them. When she's dead—and she can't live for ever—anything may happen. Meanwhile why not show them what you can do?"
"But what can I do?" he answered her fiercely. "I've never been brought up to do anything—except what I oughtn't—There's my arm and one thing and another—Besides, there's more than that in it, Miss Rand. It's the fact that—well, that there's nobody that cares that's—so freezing. If only somebody minded——"
As he spoke Rachel rose, beautifully, wonderfully, before him. There, as she had been on that first day when she had had tea there, bending forward, listening, her dark wondering eyes on his face.
Lizzie at the sound of the appeal in his voice had felt her heart expand, beat, so that her body seemed to hold, suddenly, some great possession that hurt her by its force and urgency.
But she answered almost sharply:
"Nonsense, Mr. Breton. Excuse me, but I've no patience with that kind of thing. People are meant to stand alone, not to go leaning about for other people's support. You're cursed with too much imagination, Mr. Breton, and you remember too clearly everything that's happened before. Begin now, as though you were born yesterday, and startle the family by your energy——"
"Now you're laughing at me," he said hotly. "I dare say I deserve it, but I don't feel as though I could stand—very much of it from anyone to-day——"