Only to
borrow it, you understand; he gave me a good salary and I could
have paid it back in three months. But no. He saw nothing for
himself in it, I suppose; no applause, no admiration. Philip's
gratitude would be to me, not to him. I begged, I threatened, we
argued; and while we were arguing, Philip was arrested. It
killed my mother--he was always her favourite--but Mark, as
usual, got his satisfaction out of it. He preened himself on his
judgment of character in having chosen me and not Philip twelve
years before!
"Later on I apologized to Mark for the reckless things I had said
to him, and he played the part of a magnanimous gentleman with
his accustomed skill, but, though outwardly we were as before to
each other, from that day forward, though his vanity would never
let him see it, I was his bitterest enemy. If that had been all,
I wonder if I should have killed him? To live on terms of
intimate friendship with a man whom you hate is dangerous work
for your friend. Because of his belief in me as his admiring and
grateful protege and his belief in himself as my benefactor, he
was now utterly in my power.
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