"Well — it does — and it should."
"I should like to hear you state your premises and draw your conclusion."
Rufus was silent and very sober for a little while. At last he said,
"Your success and mine have always been very different, in everything we undertook."
"Not in everything," said Winthrop.
"Well — in almost everything."
"You say I do whatever I please. The difficulty with you sometimes, Will, is that you do not 'please' hard enough."
"It would be difficult for anybody to rival you in that," Rufus said with a mingling of expression, half ironical and half bitter. "You please so 'hard' that nobody else has a chance."
To which Winthrop made no answer.
"I am not sorry for it, Governor," Rufus said just as they reached their door, and with a very changed and quiet tone.