What I said is no more a boast than for a
man with legs to say, 'I can walk.' Because you have known only legless
men, you exaggerate the difficulty of walking. It's as easy for me to make
money as it is for some people to spend it."
It is hardly necessary for me to say I was not insinuating anything against
her people. But she was just then supersensitive on the subject, though
I did not suspect it. She flushed hotly. "You will not have any cause to
sneer at my people on that account hereafter," she said. "I settled
_that_ to-day."
"I was not sneering at them," I protested. "I wasn't even thinking of them.
And--you must know that it's a favor to me for anybody to ask me to do
anything that will please you--Anita!"
She made a gesture of impatience. "I see I'd better tell you why I did not
go with them to-day. I insisted that they give back all they have taken
from you. And when they refused, I refused to go."
"I don't care why you refused, or imagined you refused," said I. "I am
content with the fact that you are here."
"But you misunderstand it," she answered coldly.
"I don't understand it, I don't misunderstand it," was my reply. "I accept
it."
She turned away from the window, drifted out of the room--you, who love or
at least have loved, can imagine how it made me feel to see _Her_
moving about in those rooms of mine.
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