"What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking nothing was ever the same thing as this."
"No.... Whatever we do, Mary, we mustn't go back on it.... If we could
have done anything else. But I can't see.... It's not as if it could last
long. Nothing lasts long. Life doesn't last long."
He sounded as if he were sorry, as if already, in his mind, he had gone
back on it. After three days.
"You're not _sorry_, Richard?"
"Only when I think of you. The awful risks I've made you take."
"Can't you see I _like_ risks? I always have liked risks. When we were
children my brothers and I were always trying to see just how near we
could go to breaking our necks."
"I know you've courage enough for anything. But that was rather a
different sort of risk."
"No. No. There are no different sorts of risk. All intense moments of
danger are the same. It's always the same feeling. I don't know whether
I've courage or not, but I do know that when danger comes you don't care.
You're hoisted up above caring."
"You _do_ care, Mary."
"About my 'reputation '? You wouldn't like to think I didn't care about
it.... Of course, I care frightfully. If I didn't, where's the risk?"
"I hate your having to take it all. I don't risk anything."
"I wish you did. Then you'd be happier. Poor Richard--so safe in his
man's world.... You can be sorry about that, if you like. But not about
me. I shall never be sorry. Nothing in this world can make me sorry.... I
shouldn't like Mamma to know about it. But even Mamma couldn't make me
sorry.... I've always been happy about the things that matter, the real
things. I hate people who sneak and snivel about real things.... People
who have doubts about God and don't like them and snivel. I had doubts
about God once, and they made me so happy I could hardly bear it....
Mamma couldn't bear it making me happy. She wouldn't have minded half so
much if I had been sorry and snivelled. She wouldn't mind so much if I
was sorry and snivelled about this."
"You _said_ you weren't going to think about your mother."
"I'm not thinking about her. I'm thinking about how happy I have been and
am and shall be."
Even thinking about Mamma couldn't hurt you now. Nothing could hurt the
happiness you shared with Richard. What it was now it would always be.
Pure and remorseless.