Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/327

Rh an ambition was self-respecting and didn't hurt anybody else, it was all right to go after it, and to go after it hard. I kept before me the last part of your advice, but forgot the first. And the first is the important part. But you aren't to blame if I got hurt. It was nobody's fault but my own!"

"So you did get hurt!"

"Oh, a little," Reba shrugged.

"And you're staying here till the hurt goes? Is that it?"

"No, that isn't it," Reba denied. "I'm staying here simply till Nathan, my husband, you know, comes back from the South Seas where his business takes him. There is no hurt," she added, "in an arm or a leg after it's amputated. The part of me that was hurt has been cut out."

Cousin Pattie stared at Reba. "You've grown deep, Reba," she remarked.

"Yes," Reba smiled faintly, "the pool has grown deep, Cousin Pattie."

"Been dredged?"

"Yes," again Reba agreed, "big, dripping clawfuls of stuff taken right out of the heart of it."

"So I can't see the bottom of it any more, I declare!" Cousin Pattie sighed. "Old notions, old prejudices, old time-worn rules of right and wrong dumped out, I suppose, on the bank. Discarded."

But Reba shook her head at that. "No, Cousin Pattie," she said soberly, "some of the old notions and prejudices and time-worn rules were too deep for the dredge to reach, thank heaven."

"Why 'thank heaven'?" inquired Cousin Pattie suspiciously. "There's a ring to your talk I don't