"Don’t!" she begged again, profoundly troubled. "I don’t know how to tell you—how to make you see how useless it is. I can’t—I don’t feel as I used to. All that is dead. I’ll never care that way for any one again."
"For me you can!"
She shook her head dumbly.
"Vincent, you’ve done me enough harm. For God’s sake, let me alone! Now, just when I’m struggling up out of the mud, you come and try to pull me down. Right here, before this very house——”
She stopped, unable to explain, even to suggest to him all that Fine Feathers meant to her, how it was her honour, her dignity, friendship, self-respect, ambition.
"You see how I’ve changed," she said, "and how I’ve improved. Why don’t you try to help me?"
"Changed?" he said, stooping to look into her face. "Not a bit of it, Angelica! You’re nothing but my Angelica, my beloved girl, the mother of my child!"
"Oh, stop!" she cried. "Oh, it’s too horrible!"
"It’s too horrible that you should repudiate me. Angelica, let us take back our child and start again, a decent, honest life. You talk of improving yourself; why don’t you think of improving me—of helping your poor little child? Let’s help each other!"
"You wouldn’t do it! You know you wouldn’t!" she cried. The tears were rolling down her cheeks unnoticed. "You’ve never even seen the poor little thing, or asked about him."