"Even so," Arthur argued, choosing to ignore that point for the moment, "I don't in the least understand why my going should make any difference one way or the other."
She bent her head a little lower as she said, "No doubt it's very quixotic and sentimental of me, but I can't bear to watch your life being ruined. It's different with the others. They're so helpless. Hubert is not fit to earn his own living, and Ken—if he comes—would probably be safer there than he would in town. He is very wild. If he comes, he'll probably marry Elizabeth and settle down."
Arthur saw that at last the time had come to set out his defence. "Yes, but why take it for granted that I should be wasting my life?" he began, and then, with one or two pauses at first, but gathering confidence in his own argument as he went on, he laid before her his plans for studying at Hartling and his hope for the future.
She listened to him attentively, attempting no comment, either by word or gesture until he had finished. He believed that he had convinced her, until she said gently,—
"And if my grandfather lives more than five years? What then?"
"He can't," Arthur expostulated. "People don't live as long as that."
"A few do," she said, "I saw in one of the papers a day or two ago, that Miss Spurgeon, the preacher's aunt, would be one hundred and one next month."
Arthur shrugged his shoulders. "Frightfully exceptional case," he muttered.
"This might be a frightfully exceptional case, too," she insisted. "You don't find anything wrong with him, do you? And he lives such a sheltered, detached sort of life. Nothing ever upsets him. He hasn't altered the least little bit, all the years I have known him. And you know, don't you, that thirty years ago it began in just the same way with the others? They thought that he wouldn't live more than five years, or ten at the outside." She could not look at him, as she concluded gently, "Don't waste your life as they've done. Anything would be better than that."
He saw it all quite clearly. He knew that she was right. But something within him continued to protest fiercely against her advice. He could no longer doubt that she was entirely disinterested. He was consoled, even a trifle flattered, by the fact that she so evidently desired his welfare. But he didn't want to leave Hartling, and he feverishly sought excuses for staying. He could find half a dozen that would satisfy himself, but he knew them for sophistries and dared not put them into words.