"
I took from my pocket the picture of Anita I always carried. "Are
_you_ like that?" I demanded of it. And it seemed to answer: "Yes,--I
am." Did I tear the picture up? No. I kissed it as if it were the magnetic
reality. "I don't care what you are!" I cried. "I want you! I want you!"
"Fool!" you are saying. Precisely what I called myself. And you? Is it
the one you _ought_ to love that you give your heart to? Is it the
one that understands you and sympathizes with you? Or is it the one whose
presence gives you visions of paradise and whose absence blots out the
light?
I loved her. Yet I will say this much for myself: I still would not have
taken her on any terms that did not make her really mine.
XXXIV
"MY RIGHT EYE OFFENDS ME"
Now that Updegraff is dead, I am free to tell of our relations.
My acquaintance with him was more casual than with any other of "The
Seven." From the outset of my career I made it a rule never to deal with
understrappers, always to get in touch with the man who had the final say.
Thus, as the years went by, I grew into intimacy with the great men of
finance where many with better natural facilities for knowing them remained
in an outer circle.
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