You've got the divine right to go, old dear!"
Robert stirred, drawing himself a little nearer to Francey, touching
her rough tweed skirt humbly, secretly, as a Catholic might touch a
sacred relic for comfort and protection. They were talking a language
that he could not understand---they were occupied with things that he
despised, not knowing what they were; they made him ashamed of his
ignorance and angry with his shame. He could not free himself of his
first conviction that they were really the Banditti--inferior children,
who yet had something that he had not. He was cleverer than they were.
He would be a great man when they had wilted from their brief,
shallow-soiled youth to a handful of dry stubble. (This Gertie Sumners
would not even live long. He recognized already the thumb-marks of
disease in her sunken cheeks.) And yet he was an outsider, blundering
in their wake. Just because they accepted him, taking it for granted
he was one of them, they deepened his isolation. He could not talk
their talk. He could not play with them. He had tried. The old
hunger "to belong" had driven him. But he was stiff with strength and
clumsy with purpose. If he and Francey had not belonged to one
another, he would have been overwhelmed in loneliness.
He shut his ears against them. But when she spoke he had to
listen--jealously, fearfully.
"It would be no use, Howard. You'd come back. You can't strip off
your nationality like an old-fashioned coat and throw it away.
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