Hollister stirred the snow absently with the pike-pole point. He tried to analyze his feelings, and he found it difficult.
"I don't think so," he said at last. "I'm rather indifferent. If you meddled with things I'd not only hate you, I think I would want to destroy you. But you needn't worry about the money. If Bland doesn't repay the hundred dollars it won't break me. I won't lend him any more if it disturbs you. But that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is whether you are going to upset everything in some rash mood that you may sometime have."
"Do you think I might do that?"
"How do I know what you may do?" he returned. "You threw me into the discard when your fancy turned to some one else. You followed your own bent with a certain haste as soon as I was reported dead. I had ceased to be man enough for you, but my money was still good enough for you. When I recall those things, I think I can safely say that I haven't the least idea what you may do next. You aren't faring any too well. That's plain enough. I have seen men raise Cain out of sheer devilishness, out of a desperate notion to smash everything because they were going to smash themselves. Some people seem able to amuse themselves by watching other people squirm. Maybe you are like that. You had complete power over me once. I surrendered to that gladly, then. You appear to have a faculty of making men dance to any tune you care to play. But all the power you have now, so far as I'm concerned, is to make me suffer a little more by giving the whole ugly show away. No, I haven't the least idea what you may do. I don't know you at all."
"My God, no, you don't," she flung out. "You don't. If you ever had, we wouldn't be where we are now."
"Probably it's as well," Hollister returned. "Even if you had been true, you'd have faltered when I came back looking like this."
"And that would have been worse than what I did do," she said, "wouldn't it?"
"Are you justifying it as an act of mercy to me?" he asked.
Myra shook her head.