"If you give in you must do more another time," he added a little solemnly.
"How you must despise us!" Her eyes flashed suddenly. "You live coolly, tranquilly on for something at the end, never, never forgetting to have balance."
"Nonsense, I am blue at times, and life is tame."
"And we stumble about with our senses, making a muddle of our earth."
"Here is the carriage already!" It was a relief to find an excuse to break away.
"You will not come again, I fancy?" she asked, simply. An hour ago he would have answered yes, meaning in his heart never. Now the unsolved woman opposite prompted him to say: "If you want to see me again, if I may?"
"Come down some, some week-day, when it is so quiet. We can have more talk, and I promise you it will do you good to mix with the herd occasionally."
She laughed lightly.
"The blood has run out," Thornton mused, as the cart rolled on through the gentle night. "This fellow here is a flabby lump. She has neuralgia and long stretches of apathy, and other ills. Her children stand to lose, if she ever has any. She has kept the frame of the splendid old stock, but in its house the nerves and tissues are morbid and she is waiting," he paused, and then the words came, "waiting for dissolution and endless rest."
"Have another cigar?" His companion interrupted his musing.