I don't
think I can say it again.'
'No, but you're not to misunderstand me, and you mustn't go on giving
and getting nothing back.'
'That's just what I can do. Not many people could, but I can. Perhaps
it's the only way I can be great, like an artist giving his work to a
world that doesn't care.'
The quick sense she had to serve her instead of knowledge and to make
her unconsciously subtle, detected his danger in the words and some
lack of homage to herself. 'Ah, you're pretending, and you're enjoying
it,' she said. 'It's consoling you for not being able to do anything
else.'
'Who said I couldn't do anything else?'
'Well, you nearly did, and I don't suppose you can. If you could, you
wouldn't bother about me.'
He was silent and though she did not look at him she was very keenly
aware of his tall figure wrapped in an overcoat reaching almost to his
heels and with the big parcel under his left arm. He was always
slightly absurd and now, when he struck the top bar of the railing
with his left hand and uttered a mournful, 'Yes, it's true!' the
tragedy in his tone could not repress her smile. Yet if he had been
less funny he might have been less truly tragic.
'So, you see, I'm only a kind of makeshift,' she remarked.
'No,' he said, 'but I may have been mistaken in myself. I'm not
mistaken about you. Never!' he cried, striking the rail again.
They were alone on the hill, but suddenly, with a clatter of wings, a
bird left his nest in the rocks and swept out of sight, leaving a
memory of swiftness and life, of an intenser blackness in the gulf.
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