"
"Peace, then. Let's have peace, Natalie."
She drew back, regarding him.
"What did you mean by things having to be better or worse?"
When he found no immediate answer, she was uneasy. The prospect of
any change in their relationship frightened her. Like all weak
women, she was afraid of change. Her life suited her. Even her
misery she loved and fed on. She had pitied herself always. Not
love, but fear of change, lay behind her shallow, anxious eyes. Yet
he could not hurt her. She had been foolish, but she had not been
wicked. In his new humility he found her infinitely better than
himself.
"I spoke without thinking."
"Then it must have been in your mind. Let me see the clipping, Clay.
I've tried to forget what it said."
She took it, still pinned to the prospectus, and bent over them both.
When she had examined them, she continued to stand with lowered
eyelids, turning and crumpling them. Then she looked up.
"So that is what you meant! It was a - well, a sort of a threat.
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