“Regard! What do you mean?”
“I did not mean regard, but the—the wish to see you succeed, to help you, if I could, to take your place among men. I told you that but yesterday.”
She was all confusion now. He seemed pitiless.
“I have listened long enough to have my curiosity aroused. I shall have somewhat to ponder—on the trail to the West.”
“Then you mean that you will go on?”
“Yes!”
“You do not understand——”
“No! I understand only that Mr. Jefferson has never abandoned a plan or a promise or a friend. Shall I, then, who have been his scholar and his friend?”
“Ah, you two! What manner of men are you that you will not listen to reason? He is high in power. Will you not also listen to the call of your own ambition? Why, in that country below, you might hold a station as proud as that of Mr. Jefferson himself. Will you throw that away, for the sake of a few dried skins and flowers? You speak of being devoted to your country. What is devotion—what is your country? You have no heart—that I know well; but I credited you with the brain and the ambition of a man!”
He sat motionless under the sting of her reproaches; and as some reflection came to her upon the savagery of her own words, she laughed bitterly.