"You're ill too," she said.
"No, not for me," he answered. "I'm pretty well for me."
"Are you never really well?"
"My body's not much better than the other things. But I must use that
too, as long as it'll last." There was no appeal for pity in his voice;
defiance was still uppermost. May felt that she must not let him see that
she pitied him, either for his bad body, or his bad manners, or his bad
morals, or his want of friends. He thought he had as much to give as to
receive. She smiled for a moment. But swift came the question--Was he
wrong? But whether he were in fact right or wrong, it was harder to deal
with him on the basis of this equality than to stoop to him in the mere
friendliness of compassion. The compassion touched him only, to accept
the equality was to make admissions about herself.
He was very silent and quiet; this might be due to illness or fatigue.
But he was also curiously free from tricks, simple, not exhibiting
himself. These were the signs of one of his moments; but what brought
about a moment now? A moment needed a great subject, a spur to his
imagination, an appeal to his deep emotions, a theme, an ideal.
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