"
"What'd he do?"
"Not much. I pushed him off a sixteen-foot embankment before he was well
started."
"Hurt him?" inquired Anthony with a laugh.
"Broke his arm and sprained his ankle. He told the story all over Hot
Springs, and when his arm healed a man named Barley who liked me fought
him and broke it over again. Oh, it was all an awful mess. He threatened
to sue Barley, and Barley--he was from Georgia--was seen buying a gun in
town. But before that mama had dragged me North again, much against my
will, so I never did find out all that happened--though I saw Barley
once in the Vanderbilt lobby."
Anthony laughed long and loud.
"What a career! I suppose I ought to be furious because you've kissed so
many men. I'm not, though."
At this she sat up in bed.
"It's funny, but I'm so sure that those kisses left no mark on me--no
taint of promiscuity, I mean--even though a man once told me in all
seriousness that he hated to think I'd been a public drinking glass."
"He had his nerve."
"I just laughed and told him to think of me rather as a loving-cup that
goes from hand to hand but should be valued none the less."
"Somehow it doesn't bother me--on the other hand it would, of course, if
you'd done any more than kiss them.
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