"I will put you in prison!" said his master. "My body, you mean,"
replied Epictetus calmly. "I will cut your head off," said his
master. "Have I said that my head could not be cut off?" A
difficult person, Epictetus.
What is this miracle by which a woman, even in your arms,
may withdraw herself, utterly disappear till what you hold is as
inaccessible as the face of a cliff?
"Be patient with me, dear," she urged sweetly. "I know it is
hard for you. And I begin to see--a little--how Terry was so
driven to crime."
"Oh, come, that's a pretty hard word for it. After all, Alima
was his wife, you know," I urged, feeling at the moment a sudden
burst of sympathy for poor Terry. For a man of his temperament
--and habits--it must have been an unbearable situation.
But Ellador, for all her wide intellectual grasp, and the broad
sympathy in which their religion trained them, could not make
allowance for such--to her--sacrilegious brutality.
It was the more difficult to explain to her, because we three,
in our constant talks and lectures about the rest of the world, had
naturally avoided the seamy side; not so much from a desire to
deceive, but from wishing to put the best foot foremost for our
civilization, in the face of the beauty and comfort of theirs.
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