That was the utmost that she meant to say. But then, as she glanced
again at the lame alien whom time had so beautifully justified, more of
her inner tide overflowed suddenly into speech.
"Do you know--I feel that I could tell you almost anything--things I
wouldn't tell Hen, or anybody.... Oh, I could, I don't know why. You
don't know for what a long time I've thought of you as my confidant, my
friend.... Only, you see--these troubles aren't all my own...."
She stopped rather precipitately, turned away a little; stood twisting a
glove between her fingers, and doing her best to show by her look that
she had not said anything in particular....
The thoughts of these two were over hills and dales apart; and yet, by
the nature of what was between them, they followed hard on the same
trail. V.V. was far from possessing the Cooneys' detective gift. He saw
only that this girl was troubled about something; and if his own thought
never left the Heth Works, it was only because this was the point where
his connection with her troubles cut him deep.
So in his ears chirped the voice of his now familiar: "Who appointed
_you_ a judge of people like this? Who knows better than you that
they're doing the best they can? Tear up that stuff!..."
But aloud he said only: "I understand that, of course. And I'm grateful
for the rest you say."
And Cally, five feet away from him, was learning that in some matters
the business logic of it didn't help very much, that what counted was
how you felt about them in your heart. If something terrible should
happen at the Works _now_, if the building did fall down some day,
collapsing with all those girls--did she think she could look again into
this man's eyes and say: "Well, _I_ had nothing to do with it?..."
But neither were her thoughts for publication; and she bridged the brief
gap in the conversation with a not particularly successful smile,
designed to show that of course nobody was taking all this very
seriously.
"But why expect to do what we want? No one can," said she. "You don't
mind my fidgeting about the room this way, do you? I seem a little out
of humor to-day--not myself at all, as I was told just now...."
V.V. said that he did not mind.
"I wonder," she went on, "if you remember something you said in your
speech the other day?--about being free.... It seemed strange to me
then, that you should have happened to say just that, for I--I've come
to realize that, in a kind of way, that's always been a wild dream of my
own.... Don't you think--where there are so many things to think about,
things and people--that it's pretty hard to be free?"
"Hard?... There's nothing else like it on earth for hardness."
V.V. stood grasping the back of an ancient walnut chair. It was seen
that he belonged in this room, simple home of poverty; different from
the girl, who was so obviously the rich exotic, the transient angel in
the house.