Part 49 (2/2)
”To myself? I'd kill myself before I let you.... Why, I'd kill you.”
”No. No. No. You only think you would, you little spitfire.”
He had given back altogether and now leaned against the chimneypiece, not beaten, not abashed, but smiling at her in a triumphant cert.i.tude.
For so long the glamour of his illusion held him.
”Nothing you can say, Barbara, will persuade me that you don't care for me.”
”Then you must be mad. Mad as a hatter.”
”All men go mad at times. You must make allowances. Listen--”
”I won't listen. I don't want to hear another word.”
She was going.
He saw her intention; but he was nearer to the door than she was, and by a quick though ponderous movement he got there first. He stood before her with his back to the door. (He had the wild thought of locking it, but chivalry forbade him.)
”You can go in a minute,” he said. ”But you've got to listen to me first. You've got to be fair to me. I may be mad; but if I didn't care for you--madly--I wouldn't have supposed for an instant that you cared for me. I wouldn't have thought of such a thing.”
”But I _don't_, I tell you.”
”And I tell you, you do. Do you suppose after all you've done for me--”
”I haven't done anything.”
”Done? Look at the way you've worked for me. I've never known anything like your devotion, Barbara.”
”Oh, _that_! It was only my job.”
”Was it your job to save me from that horrible woman?”
”Oh, yes; it was all in the day's work.”
”My dear Barbara, no woman ever does a day's work like that for a man unless she cares for him. And unless she wants him to care for her.”
”As it happens, it was f.a.n.n.y I cared for. I was thinking of f.a.n.n.y all the time.... If _you'd_ think about f.a.n.n.y more and about Mrs. Levitt and people less, it would be a good thing.”
”It's too late to think about f.a.n.n.y now. That's only your sweetness and goodness.”
”Please don't lie. If you really thought me sweet and good you wouldn't expect me to be a subst.i.tute for Mrs. Levitt.”
”Don't talk about Mrs. Levitt. Do you suppose I think of you in the same sentence? That was a different thing altogether.”
”Was it? Was it so very different?”
He saw that she remembered. ”It was. A man may lose his head ten times over without losing his heart once. If it's Mrs. Levitt you're thinking about, you can put that out of your mind for ever.”
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