"Well? No: I am not well," he replied presently, understanding things a little.
"Is it distress of mind or of body, Mr. Fagg?"
"Yesterday it was both; to-night it will be both; just now it is only one."
"Mind," he replied fiercely, refusing to acknowledge that he was starving. He threw his hat back, dashed his subscription book to the ground, and banged the unoffending bench with his fists.
"As for mind," he went on, "it's a pity I was born with any. I wish I'd had no more mind than my neighbors. It's mind, and nothing else, that has brought me to this."
"Nothing to you. Go your ways; you are young; you have yet your hopes, which may come to nothing, same as mine; even though they are not, like mine, hopes of glory and learning. There's Mr. Goslett in love with you; what is mind to you? Nothing. And you in love with him. Very likely he'll go off with another woman, and then you'll find out what it is to be disappointed. What is mind to anybody? Nothing. Do they care for it in the Museum? No. Does the head of the Egyptian Department care for it? Not he; not a bit. It's a cruel and a selfish country."
"O Mr. Fagg!" She disregarded his allusion to herself, though it was sufficiently downright.
"Yes: but I will be revenged. I will do something--yes--something that shall tell all Australia how I have been wronged; the colony of Victoria shall ring with my story. It shall sap their loyalty; they shall grow discontented; they will import more Irishmen; there shall be separation. Yes: my friends shall demand reparation in revenge for my treatment."
"I will forgive when I have had my revenge. No one shall say I am vindictive. Ah!"--he heaved a profound sigh. "They gave me a dinner before I came away; they drank my health; they all told me of the reception I should get, and the glory that awaited me. Look at me now. Not one penny in my pocket. Not one man who believes in the Discovery. Therefore I may truly say that it is better to be born without a brain."
"This is your subscription-book, I believe." She took and turned over its pages.
"Come, Mr. Fagg, you have come to the fifty-first copy of the book. Fifty-one copies ordered beforehand does not look like disbelief. May I add my name? That will make fifty-two. Twelve shillings and sixpence, I see. Oh, I shall look forward with the greatest interest to the appearance of the book, I assure you. Yet you must not expect of a dressmaker much knowledge of Hebrew, Mr. Fagg. You great scholars must be contented with the simple admiration of ignorant work-girls." He was too far gone in misery to be easily soothed, but he began to wish he had not said that cruel thing about possible desertion by her lover.