Page:Thunder on the Left (1925).djvu/282

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"You mean, you know that we're the same——"

"Yes, that this is what we're all coming to. Except Bunny . . . and—and you. You haven't done it, not quite. . . ."

"Martin, I'm worst of all," she cried. "I'm neither one nor the other."

"No, I think Ben is the worst," he said slowly. "It's too bad; he was such a nice boy. Of course George is pretty awful, but I didn't know him before."

"Quick, go away. Don't try to learn too much. You must go for their sake. If they find out who you are——"

She had a sick presentiment that they must hurry. And still he lingered, and she could feel Time sloping toward some bottomless plunge.

"Perhaps I don't want to go. There's something I don't quite understand. You all look at each other so queerly: look, and then turn away. And you and George in the garden. What is it? What's happened that hurts you all so?"

How could she answer? How tell him that the world is often too fierce for its poor creatures, overstrains and soils them in their most secret nerves; and that with all their horrors they would not have it otherwise. He had come like the unspoiled essence of living, groping blindly for what