"
"Indeed," he protested, laughing, "I am not helpless. You can't make a
baby of me just for a disabled arm."
"I suppose," Berenice said, "that I ought to be willing to say that I
had rather the wound were in my back, where it would have been but for
you; only as a matter of fact I shouldn't be telling the truth. I am
sorry for you, Mr. Wynne; but I can't help being glad for myself."
She seemed to be setting herself to win him from his ill-humor, and he
had to look into the fire away from her lips and eyes to prevent
himself from yielding. He fortified his resistance, which he felt to be
weakening, by the reflection that it was his duty not to be carried
away by her charm. He called upon his religious scruples to aid him in
holding to his passion-born jealousy.
"There," Miss Morison said, when he had been properly ensconced and
Mehitabel had departed, "now it is my duty to entertain you. What shall
I do? My accomplishments are at your service. I can read, without
stopping to spell out any except the very longest words. I can play two
tunes on the mandolin, only that I've forgotten the middle of one and
the other has a run in it that I always have to skip.
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