"No decision counts for anything against all you mean to me!"

"Oh, Jack, I'm so sorry!" she moaned, looking at me without
dissimulation and letting me see that her face was marked by a solemnity
and tragedy that wrung my heart. "God," she whispered, putting her hand
to my forehead, "how I suffer while I see your tortured eyes!"

"Then out of sorrow, pity, tell me what the fellow said," I implored,
nearly beside myself. "Let me know the strength of your duty, so my own
strength can have a chance. It isn't fair to make a beggar of me when I
might be fighting for happiness! Let me see his weapons so I can strike
back; then, if I lose, I'll lose standing up--and the future," I added,
less impetuously, "isn't so gray to the man who loses standing up."

She had turned away with a quick gesture of anguish and seemed to be
crying, but when she looked at me again there were no signs of tears.

"He says others have demands and rights, and the many must outweigh the
few."

"That depends on the greatness of each side's claims," I began, when she
interrupted by continuing:

"My conscience decided that--it had no choice; every claim has been
weighed--accurately." Her voice trembled a little, and I thought she was
trying to make it harsh. "He said that you and I were thrown out from
separate spheres, opposite poles. By chance our orbits happened to
cross, and you rendered me this tremendous service. But it was only a
part of the foreordination--only to make my path easier to a greater
duty ahead, a greater destiny to be fulfilled. Now this commands--he
says. The call of my birthright has come, and I must answer. He says
that neither of us will mind it in a little while, as memories
pa--pass." She wavered at last, and again turned away her face.

"But you don't believe that stuff?" I cried.

"Oh, his words are so unanswerable--when he speaks them! Then he has the
authority to command me!"

"They're not unanswerable," I said hotly. "_You_ haven't weighed our
happiness against this unknown voice of your people, your birthright--he
did it for you! His cold logic read the scales--not your heart or your
conscience! He's built a wall around you like a cistern, and you can't
see out. If it was ordained for us to face death, then by the same law
we've got to face life! Sweetheart, don't you see what I mean?"

"I've seen all that from the beginning, dear," she murmured, putting one
hand on my hair and stroking it. "But nothing can