"To know the truth about one's self, that is the
beginning of being strong."
"You seem determined," he retorted, "to prevent my loving you."
"Why?" she asked.
"You are to make me strong in spite of myself, I understand. But,
according to your theory, the strong love the weak only. Are you to
grow weak, Grizel, as I grow strong?"
She had not thought of that, and she would have liked to rock her
arms. But she was able to reply: "I am not trying to help you in order
to make you love me; you know, quite well, that all that is over and
done with. I am trying only to help you to be what a man should be."
She could say that to him, but to herself? Was she prepared to make a
man of him at the cost of his possible love? This faced her when she
was alone with her passionate nature, and she fought it, and with her
fists clenched she cried: "Yes, yes, yes!"
Do we know all that Grizel had to fight? There were times when Tommy's
mind wandered to excuses for himself; he knew what men were, and he
shuddered to think of the might have been, had a girl who could love
as Grizel did loved such a man as her father. He thanked his Maker,
did Tommy, that he, who was made as those other men, had avoided
raising passions in her.
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