"Give up!" was the reply. "Nay, not that, my lad. I've not come to that yet."
Then his rage broke forth again.
"You to be going there on the quiet!" he cried. "You to be making way with her, and finding her easy to please, and priding yourself on it!"
"I please her!" said Murdoch. "I pride myself!"
He got up and began to pace the floor.
"You're mad!" he said. "Mad!"
Haworth checked himself to stare at him.
"What did you go for," he asked, "if it wasn't for that?"
Murdoch stopped in his walk. He turned himself about.
"I don't know," he said, "I don't know."
"Do you think," he said, in a hushed voice, after the pause which followed,—"do you think I expect anything? Do you think I look forward or backward? Can you understand that it is enough as it stands—enough?"
Haworth still stared at him dully.
"Nay," he returned, "that I cannot."
"I to stand before her as a man with a best side which might win her favor! What is there in me, that she should give me a thought when I am not near her? What have I done? What has my life been worth? It may be nothing in the end! Good God! nothing!"
He said it almost as if stunned. For the moment he was overwhelmed, and had forgotten.
"You're nigher to her than I am," said Haworth. "You think because you're one o' the gentleman sort"
"Gentleman!" said Murdoch, speculatively. "I a gentleman?"
