"
"What I am, I am," she retorted with her imperious defiance. Just then
she felt that she hated him; she quivered with a desire to hurt him:
he had so utterly destroyed her romantic hero and her romantic dreams.
Her hands clenched.
"You talk about going straight--it's all rot!" she flamed at him. "A
lot of men say they're going straight, but no one ever does! And you
won't either!"
"You think I won't?"
"I know you won't! You don't know how to do any regular work. And,
besides, no one will give a crook a chance."
She had unerringly placed her finger upon his two great problems, and
Larry knew it; he had considered them often enough.
"All the same, I'm going to make good!" he declared.
"Oh, no, you're not!"
Perhaps he was stirred chiefly by the sting of her taunting tongue, by
the blaze of her dark, disdainful eyes; and perhaps by the changed
feeling toward this creature whom he had left a half-grown girl and
returned to find a woman. At any rate, he crossed and seized her
wrists and gazed fiercely down upon her.
"I tell you, I'm going to go straight, and I'm going to make a success
of it! You'll see!" And then he added dominantly: "What's more, I'm
going to make you go straight, too!"
She made no attempt to free herself, but blazed up at him defiantly.
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