"I see, I see!" he burst out. "It's my 'place' again. It's the fact
that I have no money!"
"Why, Samuel!" she exclaimed. "What a thing to say! It's not that--"
"It's that, and it's nothing but that! It never is anything but that!
It's because I am a poor boy, and couldn't help myself! You told me
that you loved me, and I believed you. You were so beautiful, and I
thought that you must be good! Why, I worshiped the very ground you
walked on. I would have done anything in the world for you--I would
have died for you! I went about thinking about you all day--I made you
into a dream of everything that was good and perfect! And now--now--
you say that you were only playing with me! Using me for your selfish
pleasure--just as you do all the other poor people!"
"Samuel!" she gasped.
"Just as your father does the children in his mill! Just as your
cousin does the poor girls he seduces! Just as you do everything in
life that you touch!"
The girl had turned scarlet with anger. "How dare you speak to me that
way?" she cried.
"I dare to speak the truth to anyone! And that is the truth about you!
You are like all the rest of them--the members of your class. You are
parasites--vampires--you devour other people's lives! And you are the
worst, because you are a woman! You are beautiful, and you ought to be
all the things that I imagined you were! But you use your beauty for a
snare--you wreck men's lives with it--"
"Stop, Samuel!"
"I won't stop! You shall hear me! You drew me on deliberately--you
wanted to amuse yourself with me, to see what I would do.
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