That time a full minute intervened before either realised how he had answered. And both remained exceedingly still until she said calmly:
"I thought you were the very ideal embodiment of personal liberty. And now I find that wretched and petty and ignoble circumstances fetter even such a man as you are. It—it is—is heartbreaking."
"It won't last forever," he said, controlling his voice.
"But the years are going—the best years, Mr. Jones. And your life's work beckons you. And you are equipped for it, and you can not take it!"
"Some day——" But he could say no more then, with her hand tightening in his.[52]
"To—to rise superior to circumstances—that is god-like, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes." He laughed. "But on six hundred dollars a year a man can't rise very high above circumstances."
The shock left her silent. Any gown of hers cost more than that. Then the awfulness of it all rose before her in its true and hideous proportions. And there was nothing for her to do about it, nothing, absolutely nothing, except to endure the degradation of her wealth and remember that the merest tithe of it could have made this man beside her immortally famous—if, perhaps, no more wonderful than he already was in her eyes.
Was there no way to aid him? She could look for ichneumon flies in the morning. And on the morning after that. And the next morning she would say good-bye and go away forever—out of this enchanted forest, out of his life, back to the Chihuahua, and to her guests who ate often and digested all day long—back to her father, her mother—back to Stirrups——
He felt her hand close on his convulsively, and turned to encounter her flushed and determined face.