"Well," said I, "your mother was right."
She turned full toward me, and even in the dimness I saw her quick
sympathy--an impulsive flash instantly gone. But it had been there!
"I came in here," I went on, "to say that--Anita, it doesn't in the least
matter. No one in this world, no one and nothing, could hurt me except
through you. So long as I have _you_, they--the rest--all of them
together--can't touch me."
We were both silent for several minutes. Then she said, and her voice was
like the smooth surface of the river where the boiling rapids run deep:
"But you _haven't_ me--and never _shall_ have. I've told you
that. I warned you long ago. No doubt you will pretend, and people will
say, that I left you because you lost your money. But it won't be so."
I was beside her instantly, was looking into her face. "What do you mean?"
I asked, and I did not speak gently.
She gazed at me without flinching. "And I suppose," she said satirically,
"you wonder why I--why you are repellent to me. Haven't you learned that,
though I may have been made into a moral coward, I'm not a physical coward?
Don't bully and threaten. It's useless."
I put my hand strongly on her shoulder--taunts and jeers do not turn me
aside.
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