FLAMING
YOUTH
253
‘Jim, if you’d ever had one single thought for anybody in your life but yourself I might feel different. But if there’s anything in heredity I’d as soon hand down idiocy to a child as your strain. Now, if you want a separation, get it.’ What do you think he said? ‘Oh, no, my dear. That’s heroics. I’m just about the same as other men. You don’t get off so easily. As for selfishness, you didn’t marry me in any spirit of altruism.’ ” “He had you there, Dee.” “Yes; he had me there. Then he said, ‘I’m going to hold you until you make good or break away yourself.’ ” “¢Then [ll break,’ I said. ‘Tl leave you.’ He only smiled. ‘You won’t find it too easy,’ he said. I could have killed him.” “Are you really going to leave him?” asked Pat, wide: eyed. | “I was. Now’— she jerked her hand upward—“how can I? What kind of a brute would I look?” “Perhaps he will die. Poor Jimmie!” “Tf you say ‘Poor Jimmie’ once again I'll scream at the top of my voice.” A man in chauffeur’s livery came down the stairs. He looked beseechingly at Dee. “I couldn’t help it, Mrs. James,” he gulped. “I never seen him until he grabbed the kid an’ then I couldn’t turn.” “What kid?” asked Pat. ‘Didn’t you hear how it happened?” “No. Tell us.” “I was comin’ down the road by the turn above ths bridge when a little girl run out from the curb. Mr. James must have been right behind her. I honked and the kid stopped dead. I give the wheel a twist and the kid jumped right under the fender. I knew there wasn’t no chance, but I jerked her again and felt her hit some-
