He came toward her, but she stepped back at his approach. She was more
sure of herself in the shadow.
"Oh, it's nothing--"
"You see," he tried to explain, "it's this way with me. I've made it a
rule in my life to do--well, a little more than the right thing--to do
the high thing, if you understand--and that fellow has a way of getting
so damnably on top. I can't allow it, you know. I told you so the other
day."
"You mean, if he does something fine, you must do something finer."
He winced at this. "I can't go on swallowing his beastly favors, don't
you see? And hang it all! if he is--if he _is_ my--my rival--he must
have a show."
"And how are you going to give him a show if he won't take it?"
He started to pace up and down the room. "That's your beastly America,
where everything goes by freaks--where everything is queer and
inconsequent and tortuous, and you can't pin any one down."
"It seems to me, on the contrary, that you have every one pinned down.
You've got everything your own way, and yet you aren't satisfied. Peter
has taken himself off; old Cousin Vic has paid the debts; and Olivia is
ready to go to church and marry you on the first convenient day. What
more can you ask?"
"That's what _she_ said, by Jove!--the old Marquise. She said the
question would never be raised unless I raised it."