“I don’t think,” he said, “that Welfare has made it quite clear to you why we want you to go.”
“I understood that it was to be a sort of pleasure trip for me in charge of this malefactor of yours.”
“As a matter of fact, I think you would find the journey interesting, though fatiguing. But that is not the point.”
“My point is that I have no wish to be murdered in a howling wilderness by a man of whom I utterly disapprove.”
“Jakoub may be a murderer for all I know,” Edmund admitted. “I am sure he would become one if it suited his convenience. But you must know that neither Welfare nor I would suggest your going if there was the slightest chance of his murdering you!”
Of course, I did know this perfectly well; but with the babyish perversity that sometimes afflicts quite sensible people, I felt compelled to go on being offended. I was making myself ridiculous, and I knew it, and nothing feeds anger in one’s heart like that. But having once adopted a pose, even a pose one dislikes or is tired of, it requires immense strength of mind to abandon it.
I have known the happiness of families wrecked by this fatuous adhesion to a worn-out, discredited and detested pose.
“I don’t see,” I said, “what is to prevent his murdering me if he wants to. I’m sure he dislikes me as much as I do him.”
“Very likely. But under the circumstances you will be necessary to his own safety. Jakoub has sense enough to control his dislikes.”
“And in what way am I to protect him?”