"I shall starve, then," she said.
"Sss! You know it?"
"I know it, and I'm resigned to it. If I weren't resigned to it, it would be much harder. There's nothing that can happen to provide for me; there isn't a soul in the world I can—'will,' to be accurate—appeal to for help. You've delayed it a little by your kindness, but you can't prevent its coming. Oh, I've hoped and struggled till I am worn out!" she went on, her; voice shaking. "If there were a prospect, I could rouse myself, weak as I am, to reach it; but there isn't a prospect, not the glimmer of a prospect! I'm not cowardly; I'm only rational. I admit what is; I've finished duping myself."
She could express her despair, this woman; she had education and manner. He contemplated her attentively; she interested him.
"You speak like a fatalist, for all that," he said to her.
"I speak like a woman who has reached the lowest rung of destitution and been fed on charity. I——Oh, don't, don't keep forcing me to make a child of myself like this; let me go! Perhaps you're quite right—things 'll improve."
"You shall go presently; not yet—not till I say you may."
There was silence between them once more. He lay back, with his hands thrust deep into his trouser-pockets, and his feet crossed, pondering.
"You weren't brought up to anything, of course?" he said abruptly. "Never been trained to anything? You can't do anything, or make anything, that has any market value?"
"I lived at home."