I
have not changed; my frank words and pleadings prove that I have
not. If we do not go back to the hotel brother and sister it will be
because you have changed;" and he attempted to put his arm around her
and draw her to him.
She sprang aloof. "Well, then, I have changed," she said, in a low,
concentrated voice. "Think me a prude if you will. I know I am not.
You are unjust to me, for you give me, in effect, no alternative.
You say, 'Think of me as a brother; feel and act as if you were my
sister,' when I am not your sister. It's like declaring that there
is nothing in blood--that such relations are questions of choice and
will. I said in downright sincerity that I regarded you as almost the
best friend I had, and I have not so many friends that the word means
nothing to me. I do remember all your kindness in the past--when have
I forgotten it for an hour?--but that does not change the essential
instincts of my womanhood, and since we parted I've grown to
womanhood. You in one sense have not changed, and I still am in your
mind the invalid child you used to indulge and fondle. It is not just
to me now to ask that I act and feel as if there were a natural tie
between us. The fact ever remains that there is not.
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