Clinton, and I
ought to be cured of working for you."
"You have lost an opening to make peace," said an inner voice. "You've
given the yielding plan a fair trial, and it has failed," said
self-justification--the swiftest pleader I know. "There are some
people, with self-satisfied, arbitrary tempers, upon whom gentleness
is worse than wasted, because it misleads them. They have that remnant
of savage notions which drives them to mistake generosity for
weakness. The only way to convince them is to hit them harder than
they hit you. And it is the kindest plan for everybody concerned."
I am bound to say--though it rather confuses some of my ideas--that
experience has convinced me that this last statement is not without
truth. But I am also bound to say that it was not really applicable to
Philip. He is not as generous as Alice, but I had no good reason to
believe that kindly concession would be wasted on him.
When I had flung my last defiance, Philip replied in violent words of
a kind which girls in our class of life do not (happily!) use, even
in a rage. They were partly drowned by the clatter with which he
dragged his big box across the floor, and filled it with properties of
all kinds, from the Dragon to the foot-light reflectors.
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