Verena had told her that she wanted her to hold her tight,
to rescue her; and there was no fear that, for an instant, she should
sleep at her post.
"I like him--I like him; but I want to hate----"
"You want to hate him!" Olive broke in.
"No, I want to hate my liking. I want you to keep before me all the
reasons why I should--many of them so fearfully important. Don't let me
lose sight of anything! Don't be afraid I shall not be grateful when you
remind me."
That was one of the singular speeches that Verena made in the course of
their constant discussion of the terrible question, and it must be
confessed that she made a great many. The strangest of all was when she
protested, as she did again and again to Olive, against the idea of
their seeking safety in retreat. She said there was a want of dignity in
it--that she had been ashamed, afterwards, of what she had done in
rushing away from New York. This care for her moral appearance was, on
Verena's part, something new; inasmuch as, though she had struck that
note on previous occasions--had insisted on its being her duty to face
the accidents and alarms of life--she had never erected such a standard
in the face of a disaster so sharply possible. It was not her habit
either to talk or to think about her dignity, and when Olive found her
taking that tone she felt more than ever that the dreadful, ominous,
fatal part of the situation was simply that now, for the first time in
all the history of their sacred friendship, Verena was not sincere.
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