"I'll tell you what it is," said Collins, enthusiastically blinking behind his spectacles. "It's great—that's what it is; and I'm proud to have carried it through for her."
Mr. Prentice really did not know what to say.
"And I'll tell you something more. If it isn't law, it's justice. I've never been such a stickler as you for mere outward form. Here were two people in terrible difficulty—Bence and Mrs. Marsden. She saw the way to save them both, and had the grit to take all risks and do it. That was good enough for me. As I say, I'm not so formal as you. I don't let a string of red tape trip up a brave woman when she's running for her life—that is, if I can prevent it.... Good morning, Prentice. Good morning to you."
XXIX
However he might demur at first, Mr. Prentice soon came to the conclusion that it was truly great.
Perhaps at first he was so completely flabbergasted by the surprise of the thing that he could not really take it all in; his numbed brain, only partially working, fixed upon technical objections to the conduct of affairs by Hyde & Collins; and then, with awakening comprehension of a masterly coup, the sense of having been left out in the cold diminished his delight. But this soon passed, and he began to glow joyously.
Yes, great! No other word for it! Magnificent justification of all that he had ever said and thought of her!
Not weak, but strong—as strong as she used to be; no, stronger than at any time. And he thought of her, overwhelmed with misfortunes, hemmed round by insurmountable difficulties, brought lower and lower, until she was apparently so impotent and negligible a unit in the town's life that she had become an object of contemptuous pity to the very crossing-sweepers. He thought of what the scientists say about the conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter. Great natural forces cannot be wiped out. Just when they seem gone, you get a fresh manifestation—the same force in another form. And so it was here. Mrs. Marsden, seemingly abolished, bursts out in another place, explodes the debris of ruin that was holding her down, changes direction, and rises in blazing triumph on the other side of the street.