"Why should I go
there now?"
"For the same reason that you went there eight years ago," she said.
"I went there for my mother's sake," he said.
"Then you will go there now for my sake," she said deliberately.
He looked up quickly my little
"Little Bernardine," he cried, "my Little Bernardine--is it possible
that you care what becomes of me?"
She had been leaning against the counter, and now she raised herself,
and stood erect, a proud, dignified little figure.
"Yes, I do care," she said simply, and with true earnestness. "I care
with all my heart. And even if I did not care, you know you would not
be free. No one is free. You know that better than I do. We do not
belong to ourselves: there are countless people depending on us, people
whom we have never seen, and whom we never shall see. What we do,
decides what they will be."
He still did not speak.
"But it is not for those others that I plead," she continued. "I plead
for myself. I can't spare you, indeed, indeed I can't spare you! . . ."
Her voice trembled, but she went on bravely:
"So you will go back to the mountains," she said. "You will live out
your life like a man. Others may prove themselves cowards, but the
Disagreeable Man has a better part to play.
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