Both of you liked me, honey. Only two women I ever
really cared for, too. You and m' mother."
Her face might have been burning paper, curling her scorn for him.
"Don't try that, Morton. It won't work any more. What used to infatuate
me only disgusts me now. The things I thought I--loved--in you, I loathe
now. The kind of cancer that killed your mother is the kind that eats
out the heart. I never knew her, never even saw her except from a
distance, but I know, just as well as if I'd lived in that fine big
house with her all those years in New Orleans, that you were the
sickness that ailed her--lying, squandering, gambling, no-'count son! If
she and I are the only women you ever cared for, thank God that there
aren't any more of us to suffer from you. Morton, when I read that a
Morris Sebree had died in Brazil, I hoped it was you! You're no good!
You're no good!"
She was thumping now with the sobs she kept under her voice.
"Why, Hattie," he said, his drawl not quickened, "you don't mean that!"
"I do! You're a ruiner of lives! Her life! Mine! You're a rotten apple
that can speck every one it touches.
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