“If I told you, oh! I know what you’d say. The same old sermons—the things I do want wouldn’t make me happy, the things I don’t would. You’ve made up your mind what I ought to do and you are so certain you’re right.”
“It’s not what I think——”
“Yes, yes, it is what you think; what others believe is right when you agree with them. I don’t agree with you. Your beliefs don’t make me happy.”
He sat down opposite her and began idly tracing with his finger the pattern on the shabby green cloth. She waited, wondering what he would say. So far there had been little more than a repetition of previous scenes between them. At last, after what seemed to her an interminable silence, he said—
“Don’t you see how you are breaking my heart? I believed you loved me. You deceived me. Then—do you think my work is easy to me? Don’t you know I would like to give you everything you want? But I can’t leave my work, and you—you do nothing to help me.”
“How can I when I think you’re all wrong?”
“Wrong in what way?”
“In everything. You preach about a merciful, just God! Is there any mercy or justice in allowing people to be born to live the life you are working to save them from? Nonsense!”
“Do you know what you’re saying?”
“Quite well.”