I am only afraid
that I am losing something else. I haven't an ounce of battle left in
me. I feel that I should like to close my eyes and wake up in a new
world, and start all over again."
"It is nothing but a mood," he assured her. "Those new worlds don't
exist any longer. They generally consist of foreign watering places
where the sheep and the goats house together now and then. I think I
should play the game out, Lady Ruth, until--"
"Until what?"
"Perhaps to the end," he answered. "Who can tell? Not I! By this time
tomorrow, it might be I who would be reminding you--"
"Yes?"
"That there are other worlds, and other lives to live!"
"I should like," she whispered very softly, "to hear of them. But I
fancy somehow that you will never be my instructor. What of your
ward?"
"Well! What of her?" he answered calmly.
She shivered a little.
"You were very frank with me once, Wingrave," she said. "You are a man
whose life fate has wrecked, fate and I! You have no heart left, no
feeling. You can create suffering and find it amusing. I am beginning
to realize that."
He nodded.
"There is some truth," he declared, "In what you say."
"What of that child? Is she, too, to be a victim?"
"I trust," he answered, "that you are not going to be melodramatic."
"I don't call it that. I really want to know. I should like to warn
her."
"I am not at war with children," he answered.
Pages:
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230