"Foster-father," he suggested, and stirred the slime in the ditch with his whip.
She awakened to the fact that what she had said had not made the least impression; he was laughing at her all the time.
"Get up and let me pass," she said. "Why should I try to do my best for someone who is not worth it?"
He made no sign of moving from his place.
"Now, look here, comrade," he said, pointing down at the black mirror of ditch-water. "There goes a water-spider with its legs in the air and its head downwards. If you were to ask it why it swims like that, it would say because it knows no other way. That's its nature. Well, do you see, it's my nature. What's to be done? You can't alter it."
"Anyone can restrain his evil passions," she exclaimed, flaring up in indignation. "Anyone can, if he likes, keep his eyes fixed on a high ideal and struggle to attain it--can listen to a friend when she would help, and say to him----"
"Well, what would the friend say?" he asked ingratiatingly, swinging himself nearer.
She did not answer. She had put her hands before her face and was crying--crying till her sobs convulsed her body.
"For God's sake, sit still!" he exclaimed, circling his arms towards her, for on the wobbling trunk of the mountain ash she might at any moment lose her balance. "Child, dear little comrade, sit still."
She quivered all over. She heard nothing but the sweet, caressing, criminal "dear little comrade," which her soul had been yearning to hear.