We were silent then, looking out of the window at the rain in the street. It pattered on the tops of omnibuses, on umbrellas, on mackintoshes, on the grey paving stones. The humming noise of the traffic rose up to us, muffled, through the double glass, and all those people, and the hurry, and the busyness, seemed very far away.
The waitress came to take our order; we asked for tea, and turned back to the window.
I said:
‘Yes; we must go on; it is all we can do now; just wait and hold out . . . on and on and on. . . .’
And he repeated:
‘Yes; that is all; somebody must go on; that is the only way to look at it, I think.’
I said:
‘Oh, Hugo, is it possible that all this is only three years?’
Hugo looked up with his hesitating smile.
‘Three years has not much meaning now,’ he said, ‘has it? We didn’t know anything then; we hadn’t begun. We don’t know much now; afterwards, if we can go through with it till the end, we may know something, perhaps.’