Part 29 (1/2)
”And still, in the fulness of this knowledge, you contracted by implication to deliver to her this same thing--happiness,” he said.
A second Harry Randall waited, then unconsciously he pa.s.sed his hand across his face.
”Yes,” he echoed, ”in the fulness of knowledge I did it. I loved her.”
”Loved? And yet you sacrificed her! And on top of that again labelled her rebellion unjustified!” He was silent.
Again Harry Randall's hand pa.s.sed across his face, and this time it came back damp.
”G.o.d, you're hard on me!” he said. ”I deserve it, though, and more. She was ignorant absolutely of what it meant to count pennies and deny herself. She couldn't realize, couldn't!”
Roberts said nothing. The leaven was working.
”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--” 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.
”No, frankly, I can't. I've tried, but I'm fundamentally incapable.”
Roberts' great fighting face flashed about.
”You've tried--how?”
Randall hesitated, and once again the color mounted his cheek.
”I do my work here in the department the best I can, creditably, I think; but still there isn't much to look forward to, nothing adequate.”
”And that's as far as you've tried?”
”Yes; I have no other training.”
Roberts looked at him, merely looked.
”No other training!... You fancy this little university, this little bounded, contracted circle, is the world? You've tried! Let me see your hands.”