you to explain! I won't let you. You're too disgusting
for anything. Don't I tell you I _never_ cared for you?"

"Why, of course," said Mr. Dickerson tolerantly, "you say that now; and
I don't blame you. But _I_ guess you _did_ care, once, Nelie."

"Oh, my goodness, what shall I do?" She found herself appealing in some
sort to the little wretch against himself.

"Why, let's see how you look; I hain't had a fair peep at you, yet." As
if with the notion of affording a relief to the strain of the
situation, he advanced, and lifted his hand toward the low-burning
chandelier.

"Stop!" cried Cornelia. "Are you staying here--in this house?"

"Well, I inferred that I was, from a remark that I made."

"Then I'm going away instantly. I will tell Mrs. Montgomery, and I will
go to-night."

"Why, Nie!"

"Hush! Don't you--don't dare to speak to me! Oh, you--you----" She
could not find a word that would express all her loathing of him, and
her scorn of herself in the past for having given him the hold upon her
that nothing appeared to have loosed. She was putting on a bold front,
and she meant to keep her word, but if she left that house, she did not
know where, in the whole vast city, she should go. Of course she could
go to Charmian Maybough; but besides bring afraid to venture out after
dark, she knew she would have to tell Charmian all about it; or else
make a mystery of it; there was nothing, probably, that Charmian would
have liked better, but there was nothing that Cornelia would have liked
less. She wanted to cry; it always seems hard and very unjust to us, in
after life, when some error or folly of our youth rises up to perplex
us; and Cornelia was all the more rebellious because the fault was not
wholly hers, or not even largely, but mostly her dear, innocent, unwise
mother's.

Mr. Dickerson dropped his hand without turning up the gas; perhaps he
did not need a stronger light on Cornelia, after all. "Oh, well! I
don't want to drive you out of the house. I'll go. I've got my grip out
here in the hall. But see here! I told Mrs. Montgomery we hailed from
the same place--children together, and I don't know but what
cousins--and how glad I was to find you here, and now if I leave----
Better let me stay here, over night, anyhow! I'm off on the road
to-morrow, anyway. I won't trouble you; I won't, indeed. Now you can
depend upon it. Word's as good as my bond, if my bond _ain't_ worth a
great deal. But, honor bright!"