"Do you believe that, Mr. Eaton?"
He hesitated. "Do you want me to answer that question from my own experience or from what I would like to believe life to be?"
"From your own experience, of course."
"Then I must answer that I believe the apologists to be right as to that fact."
He saw her clear eyes darken. "But you don't believe that argument itself, do you, Mr. Eaton?" she appealed. "It is only the old, old argument, 'Whatever is, is right.' You don't excuse those acts—those atrocities in time of peace? Or was I mistaken in thinking such things were against your creed? Life is part right, part wrong, isn't it?"
"I am not in a good position to judge, I'm afraid; for what I have seen of it has been all wrong—both business and life."
He had tried to speak lightly; but a sudden bitterness, a sharp hardness in his tone, seemed to assail her; it struck through her and brought her shoulders together in a shudder; but, instead of alienating her, she turned with a deeper impulse of feeling toward him.
"You—you do not want to tell more—to tell how it has been wrong; you don't want to tell that—" She hesitated, and then in an intimate way which surprised and frightened him, she added, "to me?"
After she had said it, she herself was surprised, and frightened; she looked away from him with face flushed, and he did not dare answer, and she did not speak again.
They had come to the end of the gardens where he was accustomed to turn and retrace his steps toward the house; but now she went on, and he went on with her. They were upon the wide pike which ran northward following, but back from, the shore of the lake. He saw that now, as a motor passed them on the road, she recalled that she was taking him past the previously appointed bounds; but in the intimacy of the moment, she could not bring herself to speak of that. It was Eaton who halted and asked, "Shall we go on?"