Jimsy King sat down and looked at him, aghast. "Good Lord, Cart'—that's the truth! That shows what a mutt I am. It hasn't struck me before. It's all my fault."
"Whatever happens to Honor—whatever happens to her—and death wouldn't be the worst thing, would it?—it's your fault. Do you hear what I say? It's all your fault!" In all the years since he had known him Jimsy had never seen Carter Van Meter like this,—cool Carter, with his little elegancies of dress and manner, his studied detachment. This was a different person altogether,—hot-eyed, white-lipped, snarling. "Your fault if she dies here, dies of thirst; your fault if they get in here and carry her off, those filthy brutes out there."
"They'll never ... get her," said Jimsy King. His face was scarlet and he was breathing hard and clenching and unclenching his hands.
"Yes," Carter sneered, "yes! I know what you mean! You feel very heroic about it. You feel like a hero in a movie, don't you? Noble of you, isn't it? Slay the heroine with your own hands rather than let her——"
"Oh, for God's sake, Cart'!" Jimsy got up and came toward him. "Cut it out! What's the good of talking like that? We're in it now, all of us, and we've got to stick it out. I know it's harder on you because you're not strong, but——"
"Damn you! 'Not strong—' Not built like an ox—muscles in my brain instead of my legs! Because I cared for something else besides rolling around in the mud with a leather ball in my arms——"
"Key down, old boy." Jimsy was cool now, unresentful; he understood. Poor old Cart' ... he couldn't stand much suffering.
"That's how you got Honor, when she was a child, with no sense of values, but you haven't held her! You can't hold her."
"Cart', I'm not going to get sore at you. I know you're about all in. You don't know what you're saying."
"Don't I? Don't I? You listen to me. Honor Carmody never really loved you; it was a silly boy-and-girl, calf love affair, and when she realized it she stood by, of course,—she's that sort. She kept the letter of her promise, but she couldn't keep the spirit."