"
"That's hard, Hattie, but I reckon you're not all wrong."
"Oh, that softy Southern talk won't get us anywhere, Morton. The very
sound of it sickens me now. You're like a terrible sickness I once had.
I'm cured now. I don't know what you want here, but whatever it is you
might as well go. I'm cured!"
He sat forward in his chair, still twirling the soft brown hat. He was
dressed like that. Softly. Good-quality loosely woven stuffs. There was
still a tan down of persistent youth on the back of his neck. But his
hands were old, the veins twisted wiring, and his third finger yellowly
stained, like meerschaum darkening.
"Grantin' everything you say, Hattie--and I'm holdin' no brief for
myself--_I've_ been the sick one, not you. Twenty years I've been down
sick with hookworm."
"With devilishness."
"No, Hattie. It's the government's diagnosis. Hookworm. Been a sick man
all my life with it. Funny thing, though, all those years in Rio knocked
it out of me."
"Faugh!"
"I'm a new man since I'm well of it.
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