“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. “What did you mean?” I repeated.
“Take your hand off me,” she commanded.
“What did you mean?” I repeated sternly. “Don't be afraid to answer.”
She was very young—so the taunt stung her. “I was about to tell you,” said she, “when you began to make it impossible.”