"And you think—you really think"—her voice had a nervous appealing note—"that even at this eleventh hour—No, I don't understand!—I can't understand!—why, or how you should still think it possible to change things enough!"
He felt a sting of pleasure, and the passing sense of hurt pride was soothed. At least he had conquered her attention, her curiosity!
"I am sure that anything might still happen," he said stubbornly.
"Well, only let it be settled!" she said, trying to speak lightly, "else there will be nothing left of some of us."
She raised her hand, and pushed back her hair with a childish gesture of weariness, that was quite unconscious, and therefore touching.
As she spoke, indeed, the thought of a strong man harassed with overwork, and patiently preparing to lay down his baffled task, and all his cherished hopes, captured her mind, brought a quick rush of tears even to her eyes. Tressady looked at her; he saw the moisture in the eyes, the reddening of the cheek, the effort for self-control.
"Why do you let yourself feel it so much?" he said resentfully; "it is not natural, nor right."
"That's our old quarrel, isn't it?" she answered, smiling.
He was staring at the ground again, poking with his stick.
"There are so many things one must feel," he said in a bitter low voice; "one may as well try to take politics calmly."