"A word with you, Mr. Mazarine," he said, with the air of a man who wants
to ease his mind of its trouble by action. "Back there at the station,
I kept my tongue and let you down easy enough, because my mother was
present. She is old and sensitive, and she doesn't like to see her son
doing the dirty work every man must do some time or other, when there's
street cleaning to be done. Now, let me tell you this: you've slandered
as good a girl, you've libelled as straight a wife, as the best man in
the world ever had. You've made a public scandal of your private home.
You've treated the pure thing as if it were the foul thing; and yet, you
want to keep the pure thing that you treat like a foul thing, under your
rawhide whip, because it's young and beautiful and good. You don't want
to save her soul"--he pointed to the Bible, which the old man had
snatched from his pocket again--"you don't want to save her soul. You
don't care whether she's happy in this world or the next; what you want
is what you can see of her, for your life in this world only.
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