It did not return the pressure. He shook his head as if to drive away
the thought of this, and added in a louder, light tone:
"Nothing less. And it isn't because I think little of what I've got
already. Oh, no! It is because I think so much of this possession of
mine that I can't have it complete enough. I know it's unreasonable. You
can't hold back anything--now."
"Indeed I couldn't," she whispered, letting her hand lie passive in his
tight grasp. "I only wish I could give you something more, or better, or
whatever it is you want."
He was touched by the sincere accent of these simple words.
"I tell you what you can do--you can tell me whether you would have gone
with me like this if you had known of whom that abominable idiot of a
hotel-keeper was speaking. A murderer--no less!"
"But I didn't know you at all then," she cried. "And I had the sense to
understand what he was saying. It wasn't murder, really. I never thought
it was."
"What made him invent such an atrocity?" Heyst exclaimed. "He seems a
stupid animal. He _is_ stupid. How did he manage to hatch that pretty
tale? Have I a particularly vile countenance? Is black selfishness
written all over my face? Or is that sort of thing so universally human
that it might be said of anybody?"
"It wasn't murder," she insisted earnestly.
"I know. I understand.
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