A good woman whom the whole town pitied! A
no-'count son squandering her fortune and dragging down the family name.
If only I had known all that then! She would have helped me if I had
appealed to her. She wouldn't have let things turn out secretly--the way
they did. She would have helped me. I--You--Why have you come here
to jerk knives out of my heart after it's got healed with the points
sticking in? You're nothing to me. You're skulking for a reason. You've
been hanging around, getting pointers about me. My life is my own! You
get out!"
"The girl. She well?"
It was a quiet question, spoken in the key of being casual, and Hattie,
whose heart skipped a beat, tried to corral the fear in her eyes to take
it casually, except that her eyelids seemed to grow old even as they
drooped. Squeezed grape skins.
"You get out, Morton," she said. "You've got to get out."
He made a cigarette in an old, indolent way he had of wetting it with
his smile. He was handsome enough after his fashion, for those who like
the rather tropical combination of dark-ivory skin, and hair a lighter
shade of tan.
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