“Common humanity,” he repeated. “You'd have done it for anybody along the road, would you?”
At this remark, so characteristic of Hilary, Victoria, hesitated. She understood it now. And yet she hesitated to give him an answer that was hypocritical.
“I have known you all my life, Mr. Vane, and you are a very old friend of my father's.”
“Old,” he repeated, “yes, that's it. I'm ready for the scrap-heap—better have let me lie, Victoria.”
Victoria started. A new surmise had occurred to her upon which she did not like to dwell.
“You have worked too hard, Mr. Vane—you need a rest. And I have been telling father that, too. You both need a rest.”
He shook his head.
“I'll never get it,” he said. “Stopping work won't give it to me.”
She pondered on these words as she guided the horse over a crossing. And all that Austen had said to her, all that she had been thinking of for a year past, helped her to grasp their meaning. But she wondered still more at the communion which, all at once, had been established between Hilary Vane and herself, and why he was saying these things to her. It was all so unreal and inexplicable.
“I can imagine that people who have worked hard all their lives must feel that way,” she answered, though her voice was not as steady as she could have wished. “You—you have so much to live for.”