Betty assented.
'No; it wouldn't have been very fair.'
So their past intercourse was defined in few words. That done, Prudence turned to the present.
'But now—now it would be fair—if you will.'
Betty shook her head. Prudence had supposed that she would.
'No, not now. That wouldn't at all do.'
They rested on that for a minute before Betty went on.
'Tommy and I have got each other; and that is the way it must be, the way we've got to do it—don't you see?'
Her eyes seemed to entreat Prudence to see, to make, if she could, others see.
'It's like this,' the sad tones stammeringly explained. 'We're in a mess, Tommy and I; and we've got to get out of it somehow, if we can—find, you know, things we don't hate, things to go on with. That's all we want: to go on somehow and be happy, as we used to be happy. You know, you can't be happy if you're wishing all the time to have things you can't have, and to be things you can't be. So, either we must stop wishing—and we may do that in time—or we must find new things that we like. But that's bound to be a long job.' No movement of Prudence's demurred to that; its truth stared one in the face. 'And perhaps we can't do that; perhaps things stick always.'