"Your father has found an argument which makes me pause, if it does not
convince me. No! I can't answer it. I--I don't want to answer it. I
simply surrender. He shall have his way with you--and with me. Only,"
he added in a gloomy lowered tone which struck Mr. Powell as if a pedal
had been put down, "only it shall take a little time. I have never lied
to you. Never. I renounce not only my chance but my life. In a few
days, directly we get into port, the very moment we do, I, who have said
I could never let you go, I shall let you go."
To the innocent beholder Anthony seemed at this point to become
physically exhausted. My view is that the utter falseness of his, I may
say, aspirations, the vanity of grasping the empty air, had come to him
with an overwhelming force, leaving him disarmed before the other's mad
and sinister sincerity. As he had said himself he could not fight for
what he did not possess; he could not face such a thing as this for the
sake of his mere magnanimity. The normal alone can overcome the
abnormal. He could not even reproach that man over there.
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