“Here is something to interest you,” he said, “an article on Realism in Fiction, or some nonsense like that.  You needn’t read it now.  I don’t want the paper again.’’

“I thought you never lent anything,” she said, as she glanced at the article, “much less gave it.”

“Giving and lending are not usually in my line,” he replied.  “I think I told you once that I thought selfishness perfectly desirable and legitimate, if one had made the one great sacrifice.”

“Yes,” she said eagerly, “I have often wondered what you considered the one great sacrifice.”

“Come out into the air,” he answered, “and I will tell you.”

She went to put on her cloak and, hat, and found him waiting for her at the top of the staircase.  They passed out into the beautiful night:  the sky was radiantly bejewelled, the air crisp and cold, and harmless to do ill.  In the distance, the jodelling of some peasants.  In the hotels, the fun and merriment, side by side with the suffering and hopelessness.  In the deaconess’s house, the body of the Dutchman.  In God’s heavens, God’s stars.

Robert Allitsen and Bernardine walked silently for some time.

“Well,” she said, “now tell me.”

“The one great sacrifice,” he said half to himself, “is the going on living one’s life for the sake of another, when everything that would seem to make life acceptable has been wrenched away, not the pleasures, but the duties, and the possibilities of expressing one’s energies, either in one direction or another:  when, in fact, living is only a long tedious dying.  If one has made this sacrifice, everything else may be forgiven.”

He paused a moment, and then continued: 

“I have made this sacrifice, therefore I consider I have done my part without flinching.  The greatest thing I had to give up, I gave up:  my death.  More could not be required of any one!”

He paused again, and Bernardine was silent from mere awe.

“But freedom comes at last,” he said, “and some day I shall be free.  When my mother dies, I shall be free.  She is old.  If I were to die, I should break her heart, or, rather she would fancy that her heart was broken. (And it comes to the same thing).  And I should not like to give her more grief than she has had.  So I am just waiting, it may be months, or weeks, or years.  But I know how to wait:  if I have not learnt anything else, I have learnt how to wait.  And then” . . .

Bernardine had unconsciously put her hand on his arm; her face was full of suffering.

“And then?” she asked, with almost painful eagerness.

“And then I shall follow your Dutchman’s example,” he said deliberately.

Bernardine’s hand fell from the Disagreeable Man’s arm.

She shivered.

“You are cold, you little thing,” he said, almost tenderly for him.  “You are shivering.”

“Was I?” she said, with a short laugh.  “I was wondering when you would get your freedom, and whether you would use it in the fashion you now intend!”