But words
don't touch me. Nothing can touch me; neither your sinister warnings nor
the moods of levity which you think proper to display before a man whose
life, according to you, hangs on a thread."
"I never forget it for a moment," said Mrs. Travers. "And I not only
know that it does but I also know the strength of the thread. It is a
wonderful thread. You may say if you like it has been spun by the same
fate which made you what you are."
Mr. Travers felt awfully offended. He had never heard anybody, let alone
his own self, addressed in such terms. The tone seemed to question his
very quality. He reflected with shocked amazement that he had lived with
that woman for eight years! And he said to her gloomily:
"You talk like a pagan."
It was a very strong condemnation which apparently Mrs. Travers had
failed to hear for she pursued with animation:
"But really, you can't expect me to meditate on it all the time or shut
myself up here and mourn the circumstances from morning to night. It
would be morbid. Let us go on deck."
"And you look simply heathenish in this costume," Mr. Travers went on
as though he had not been interrupted, and with an accent of deliberate
disgust.
Her heart was heavy but everything he said seemed to force the tone
of levity on to her lips.
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