"
Pete fought down his panic, reminding himself that no man living could
hear such words without terror. His egotism, never colossal, stood
feebly between him and Mrs. Farron's estimate of him. He seemed to sink
back into the general human species. If he had felt inclined to detail
his own qualities, he could not have thought of one. There was a long
silence, while Adelaide sat with a look of docile teachableness upon her
expectant face.
At last Wayne stood up.
"It's no use, Mrs. Farron," he said "That question of yours can't be
answered. I believe she loves me. It's my bet against yours."
"I won't gamble with my child's future," she returned. "I did with my
own. Sit down again, Mr. Wayne. You have heard, I suppose, that I have
been married twice?"
"Yes." He sat down again reluctantly.
"I was Mathilde's age--a little older. I was more in love than she. And
if he had been asked the question I just asked you, he could have
answered it. He could have said: 'I have been a leader in a group in
which I was, an athlete, an oarsman, and the most superb physical
specimen of my race'--brought up, too, he might have added, in the same
traditions that I had had. Well, that wasn't enough, Mr. Wayne, and that
was a good deal. If my father had only made me wait, only given me time
to see that my choice was the choice of ignorance, that the man I thought
a hero was, oh, the most pitifully commonplace clay--Mathilde shan't make
my mistake.
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