"Everybody thinks what?"
"That I'm a cad to be sticking here, doing nothing, living on Mamma's money."
"It doesn't matter. They've no business to think."
"No. But Mamma thinks it. She says I ought to get something to do. She talks about Mark and Dan. She can't see—" He stopped, biting his lip.
"If I were like Mark—if I could do things. That beast Norman Waugh can do things. He doesn't live on his mother's money. She sees that….
"She doesn't know what's the matter with me. She thinks it's only my heart. And it isn't. It's me. I'm an idiot. I can't even do office work like Dan…. She thinks I'll be all right if I go away far enough, where she won't see me. Mind you, I should be all right if I'd gone into the Navy. She knows if I hadn't had that beastly rheumatic fever I'd have been in the Navy or the Merchant Service now. It's all rot not passing you. As if walking about on a ship's deck was worse for your heart than digging in a garden. It certainly couldn't be worse than farming in Canada."
"Farming? In Canada?"
"That's her idea. It'll kill me to do what I want. It won't kill me to do what she wants."
He brooded.
"Mark did what he wanted. He went away and left her. Brute as I am, I wouldn't have done that. She doesn't know that's why I'm sticking here. I can't leave her. I'd rather die."