"But oh, yes!" she said. "I was thinking about it all before you came. The war made me dissatisfied. We none of us did anything, and I couldn't help feeling what empty, useless lives we were living here."
"I don't see that you'd be doing anything more by working for a millionaire in the city than by working for Mr Kenyon," Arthur put in.
"I know. That weighed with me," she agreed. "What I really want is to be a nurse. Only I don't quite know how to begin. But you can tell me about that, can't you?"
He pushed her inquiry on one side. "I can't see," he said, "why either you or I have to leave. I can't really."
She had been talking to him freely, almost gaily, but now her manner took on the air of constraint with which she had begun the conversation.
"Need we go back to that?" she asked.
"Why, of course we must," he said in an aggrieved tone. "As far as I can see that's what we came out to talk about."
"But we settled it," she returned. "I'm going!"
"And if I went? If I broke my promise and went instead, would you stay?"
"I might for the sake of the others," she said. "I do help them a little. And in spite of everything, I'm sorry for him—for that wicked old man upstairs." She dropped her voice and looked down at her clasped hands as she concluded, "He is wicked, although you may not believe it."