"
"Well," said I, "and why didn't you go?"
She pressed her lips firmly together. Finally, with a straight look into my
eyes, she replied: "I shall not discuss that. You probably misunderstand,
but that is your own affair."
"You believed what she said about me, of course," said I.
"I neither believed nor disbelieved," she answered indifferently, as she
rose to go. "It does not interest me."
"Come here," said I.
I waited until she reluctantly joined me at the window. I pointed to the
steeple of the church across the way. "You could as easily throw down that
steeple by pushing against it with your bare hands," I said to her, "as
'they,' whoever they are, could put me down. They might take away my money.
But if they did, they would only be giving me a lesson that would teach me
how more easily to get it back. I am not a bundle of stock certificates or
a bag of money. I am--here," and I tapped my forehead.
She forced a faint, scornful smile. She did not wish me to see her belief
of what I said.
"You may think that is vanity," I went on. "But you will learn, sooner or
later, the difference between boasting and simple statement of fact. You
will learn that I do not boast.
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