'A little that. But that shouldn't count much.... There would be other things, and they would all have to be weighed.... It wouldn't be easy.'
'No,' Betty said; 'I suppose not. So it's just as well, really, that it can't come to that, that we can't take anything—not either of us, not ever, because of all the things between.'
Then, all the things between growing with the words to insistence, Betty mentioned some of them, impelled, now the barriers were so breaking, to have everything clear.
'There are so many things.... There's all the money we owe. We must pay it back.'
Prudence silently assented. She wondered how much the Crevequers owed Warren Venables.
'There are c-crowds of other things,' the sad voice stammered on—'everything, almost.... But you know it all. You have known it all the time.'
Their eyes met and looked away. Prudence did not at all deny that she had known it all the time.
'You've all of you known it all the time,' went on the dreary voice, without anger, without hope. Anger had been spent before, on another of those who had 'known it all the time.' (The passionate fires of the days of reparation had burned resentment to ashes, and on these had dropped the tears of pity and pain.) Hope there was none. 'But Tommy and I—we've only got to know it lately, you see. We—we didn't understand before. But we understand now. We understand why—why you wouldn't be friends with us.'
Prudence looked away sadly. It was terrible to have to accept it all so, denying nothing. She wanted to heal, but knew no way.
In the pause Betty took up a cigarette-case from Tommy's chair, mechanically fingering it. Then abruptly she dropped it, and looked defiantly up.