Page:The Relentless City.djvu/153

Rh are indifferent to life. Indeed it is not fair. I am what I am. You may hate me or love me, but it is me. I am hard, I dare say, without the power to love; that is me too. And you say to me, And because I don't—ah, there is your mistake; it is because I can't. I could pray and think and agonize, and yet not add an inch to my stature; and do you think, then, it is likely that I could alter what is so vastly more me than my

said he,

She made a hopeless gesture with her hands.

she said.

He sat very upright in his chair, grasping the arms in his hands, feeling that he knew for certain what this was.

He dropped the cigarette he had just lit into the fireplace. With her woman's quickness, she instantly saw the symbolical application of this, and, with her passion for analysis, could not resist casting a fly, as it were, over it. She pointed to the grate.

she said.

He looked at her for one half-second, and then, with rather slower-moving mind, recalled what he had said about not smoking any more.

he said, feeling again the thrill of even this infinitesimal piece of fencing with her.

She got up.