"And I hadn't even that excuse," said Maxwell.
"Oh, yes you had," she retorted. "I provoked you. And if any one was to blame, I was. Do you mind it so much?"
"Yes, it tears my heart. And it makes me feel so low and mean."
"Oh, how good you are!" she began, but he stopped her.
"Don't! I'm not good; and I don't deserve success. I don't feel as if this belonged to me. I ought to send Godolphin's check back, in common honesty, common decency." He told of the quarrel he had witnessed on the canal-boat, and she loved him for his simple-hearted humility; but she said there was nothing parallel in the cases, and she would not let him think so; that it was morbid, and showed he had been overworking.
"And now," she went on, "you must write to Mr. Ricker at once and thank him, and tell him you can't do the letters for him. Will you?"
"I'll see."
"You must. I want you to reserve your whole strength for the drama. That's your true vocation, and it would be a sin for you to turn to the right or left." He continued silent, and she went on: "Are you still thinking about our scrap this morning? Well, then, I'll promise never to begin it again. Will that do?"
"Oh, I don't know that you began it. And I wasn't thinking—I was thinking of an idea for a play—the eventuation of good in evil—love evolving in hate."
"That will be grand, if you can work it out. And now you see, don't you, that there is some use in squabbling, even?"