THE SACRED FOUNT
you like. I want—you surely must understand if I want anything of it at all—to get it absolutely right." Then as this plea seemed still not to move her, I once more compressed my palms. "You won't help me?"
She bridled at last with a higher toss. "It wasn't with such views I came. I don't believe," she went on a shade more patiently, "I don't believe—if you want to know the reason—that you're really sincere."
Here indeed was an affair. "Not sincere—I?"
"Not properly honest. I mean in giving up."
"Giving up what?"
"Why, everything."
"Everything? Is it a question"—I stared—"of that?"
"You would if you were honest."
"Everything?" I repeated.
Again she stood to it. "Everything."
"But is that quite the readiness I've professed?"
"If it isn't then, what is?"
I thought a little. "Why, isn't it simply a matter rather of the renunciation of a confidence?"
"In your sense and your truth?" This, she indicated, was all she asked. "Well, what is that but everything?"
"Perhaps," I reflected, "perhaps." In fact, it no doubt was. "We'll take it then for everything,
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