Page:The Bet and Other Stories.djvu/73

Rh Katy interrupts. "Your eyes are opened—that's all. You've begun to notice things you didn't want to notice before for some reason. My opinion is that you must break with your family finally first of all and then go away."

"You're talking nonsense."

"You don't love them any more. Then, why do you behave unfairly? And is it a family! Mere nobodies. If they died to-day, no one would notice their absence to-morrow."

Katy despises my wife and daughter as much as they hate her. It's scarcely possible nowadays to speak of the right of people to despise one another. But if you accept Katy's point of view and own that such a right exists, you will notice that she has the same right to despise my wife and Liza as they have to hate her.

"Mere nobodies!" she repeats. "Did you have any dinner to-day? It's a wonder they didn't forget to tell you dinner was ready. I don't know how they still remember that you exist."

"Katy!" I say sternly. "Please be quiet."

"You don't think it's fun for me to talk about them, do you? I wish I didn't know them at all. You listen to me, dear. Leave everything and go away: go abroad the quicker, the better."

"What nonsense! What about the University?"

"And the University, too. What is it to you? There's no sense in it at all. You've been