"Thusis——"
"Wait! If you speak I shall expire. Because you never will know how funny you are, Michael! Oh——"
I waited until she was able to control herself.
"Thusis," I began, stiffly——
"Oh, don't! Please don't! I'm too weak. I'll go to bed—really I will, Michael. And leave you to wrap yourself in your nightie and stalk back to the Admiral——"
"Damn it all!" I broke out. She rocked, helplessly, her face buried in her hands.
After a while she got up, supporting herself by one hand on the stair-rail. The other hand pressed her heart.
"Michael dear," she said, "you are perfectly right. We are what we are. Nothing alters that. We are born what we are; we die what we are. No cataclysm can change what we really are.... As for distinction of rank, don't you know, Michael, that social inequality always has existed and always will?"
"Not artificial social inequality. Minds alone will dominate. Personality only will count. Inheritance and tradition will play no part in the world's future after this war ends."
"You seem to be quite sure, Michael."