"I think I do--far better than you believe--and I've about made up my
mind to take a hand myself. I cannot well be less chivalrous, less loyal
than you."
She looked puzzled, but he did not explain that he had overheard her
valiant defence of himself to old Edouard Dubois.
"You're not vindictive, are you?"
She shook her head.
"I think not, but I am what is just as bad, perhaps--terribly
unforgiving."
"Even your beloved Stevenson was not too meek," he reminded her. "Do you
remember his essay 'Ordered South'?"
She nodded.
"If I am quoting correctly, he says in speaking of a man's duties: 'He,
as a living man, has some to help, some to love, some to correct; it may
be, some to punish.' And," he was speaking to himself now rather than to
her, "the spirit of retaliation is strong within me."
She answered, "They've been very unjust to you, but I did not think
you'd noticed."
He laughed aloud.
"To me? Do you think I'd trouble myself for anything they might say or
do to me?"