"You know already, Jim."
He shook his head slowly.
"Jim! Of course you know!" she insisted hotly. "What you may have been before I knew you I refuse to consider. Anyway, it was you—part of you—and belongs to me now! Because I choose to make it mine—all that you were and are—good and evil! For I won't give up one atom of you—even to the devil himself!"
He tried to laugh: "What a fierce little partisan you are," he said.
"Very—where it concerns you," she said, unsmiling.
"Dear—I had better tell you now; you may hear things about me——"
"I won't listen to them!"
"No; but one sometimes hears without listening. People may say things. They will say things. I wish I could spare you. If I had known—if I had only known—that you were in the world——"
"Don't, Jim! It—it isn't best for me to hear. It doesn't concern me," she insisted excitedly. "And if anybody dares say one word to me——"