Percival said abruptly, "Yes, I'm going." He released the hand and went away a step. "I'm going. I've a longish way home and things to do before bedtime. You'll be gone at daybreak?"
"All the luck with you, Japhra. I'm better for seeing you." He spoke jerkily as though his throat were full and speech difficult. He stopped abruptly, and half turned away; then, recollecting Ima, went back to the van and stretched up his hand to where she stood: "Good night, Ima."
She stooped down to him. The action brought her face into the darkness and he noticed how her wide eyes, as she stooped, seemed actually to light it. "Farewell!" she said.
It was perhaps that he had so obviously only attended to her as an afterthought that her throat, for all the sound her word had, might have been as full as his. Some thought of the kind--that he had been churlish to her--crossed him. He said more kindly: "I say, though! your hand is cold, Ima."
She withdrew her fingers, giving him no reply. But as he turned away and went a step, "What of thy way home?" she cried, and cried it on a sudden note as though it went against her will.
"By the Ridge," he told her. "By Plowman's Ridge and then along."
She answered him: "Yes, I am cold. I will warm me to the Ridge with thee--if thou wilt suffer me."
In the mood that was on him he had preferred to be alone. But under the same apprehension of having been churlish to her, "Why, that's jolly of you," he said.
She went within the van a few moments; and while he waited he had a last exchange with Japhra: "You've helped me, Japhra. But I shall disappoint you if I'm tried too hard. Content--I'll make a fight for it. But I shall not endure it very well if I am still to be idler." He gave a hard little laugh. "When it's a fight for mastery of myself I shall disappoint you, I believe."
Japhra told him: "I have seen men, master, and know the fashion of them. Thou wilt not disappoint me."
"You can't say that of any one--for certain."
"I say it of thee. Though thou failest a score times thine is the mould that comes again--for that I shall look. Listen to me, little master--that name clings: I cannot shake it from me. Listen to me. Thy type runneth hot through life till at last it cometh to the big fight. Send me news of that." He struck a match to relight his pipe and cupped the flame against his face. "Send only 'The Big Fight, Japhra,'" he said.