Sarah said, “You’re really weak, aren’t you, Jimmie? You can’t tell what I’m going to do! That’s your misfortune. All you can be sure of is—that you’ve got to knuckle under.”
“You wouldn’t do the decent thing? I mean, just forget you ever saw those books?
Erase it from your mind? Lock it all up? Never mention it to anybody? Never show a trace of the effect of what you have found out? You couldn’t feel ashamed you read ’em and do the sporting thing of—skipping it?”
“I suppose you would,” she said acidly.
“I think so. And I think you will, Sarah.”
She laughed shortly. “You do? Why?”
“Because I say so.”
She laughed again. “You say so and I just—obey. Is that it?”
“Yes. That’s it.” Jimmie stood up. He was pale again. He towered over his sister.
His lean shoulders stooped down. His eyes looked into hers. “You’re eighteen. You’re adult. I’m not going to lecture you about right and wrong, good and evil. Maybe you wouldn’t understand if I did. But you do seem to understand power and violence. So I’m just going to threaten you, Sarah. By threaten, I mean I am going to make a holy pledge to you that I’d follow to the end of time, at any cost and at all costs. My pledge is about you—in the event that you ever do in any way use the knowledge you now have.”