"I'll do anything--I'll be abject--I'll be vile--I'll go down in the
dust!"
"I ask nothing of you, and I have nothing to do with you," Ransom said.
"That is, I ask, at the most, that you shouldn't expect that, wishing to
make Verena my wife, I should say to her, 'Oh yes, you can take an hour
or two out of it!' Verena," he went on, "all this is out of
it--dreadfully, odiously--and it's a great deal too much! Come, come as
far away from here as possible, and we'll settle the rest!"
The combined effort of Mr. Filer and Selah Tarrant to pacify the public
had not, apparently, the success it deserved; the house continued in
uproar and the volume of sound increased. "Leave us alone, leave us
alone for a single minute!" cried Verena; "just let me speak to him, and
it will be all right!" She rushed over to her mother, drew her, dragged
her from the sofa, led her to the door of the room. Mrs. Tarrant, on the
way, reunited herself with Olive (the horror of the situation had at
least that compensation for her), and, clinging and staggering together,
the distracted women, pushed by Verena, passed into the vestibule, now,
as Ransom saw, deserted by the policeman and the reporter, who had
rushed round to where the battle was thickest.
"Oh, why did you come--why, why?" And Verena, turning back, threw
herself upon him with a protest which was all, and more than all, a
surrender. She had never yet given herself to him so much as in that
movement of reproach.
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