“I hoped, deluded myself with the belief, that it would be different; yet from the first I knew better. I was to blame absolutely. I simply loved her, as I do now—that was all.”
“Yes.” This time the voice was gentle, unbelievably gentle. “I think I understand—think I do. Anyway,” the voice was matter of fact again, startlingly, perhaps intentionally, so, “we’re wandering from the point. The past is dead. Let’s bury it and look into the future. Do you see the solution yet?”
Randall looked up swiftly. He smiled; the smile of a noncombatant.
“Yes, I see it; I can’t help seeing it; but—” 209 The sentence completed itself in a gesture of impotency confessed.
“Don’t do that, don’t!” The annoyance was not simulated. “It’s unforgivable.... You’re healthy, are you not?”
“Yes.”
“And strong?”
“Reasonably.”
“Well, what more can you ask? The world’s full of work; avalanches of it, mountains of it. It seems as though there never was so much to be done as now, to-day; and the world will pay, pay if you’ll do it. Can’t you see light?”
Randall caught himself in time to prevent a second gesture.