Alpha Book

"Ah, yes!" he scoffed, "Lichfield would have made a fitting home for
her. She would have been very happy here, shut off from the world with
us,--with us, whose forefathers have married and intermarried with one
another until the stock is worthless, and impotent for any further
achievement. For here, you know, we have the best blood in America, and
--for utilitarian purposes--that means the worst blood. Ah, we may prate
of our superiority to the rest of the world,--and God knows, we
do!--but, at bottom, we are worthless. We are worn out, I tell you! we
are effete and stunted in brain and will-power, and the very desire of
life is gone out of us! We are contented simply to exist in Lichfield.
And she--"
He paused, and a new, fierce light came into his eyes. "She was so
beautiful!" he said, half-angrily, between clenched teeth.
"You are just like the rest of them, Olaf," she lamented, with a hint
of real sadness. "You imagine you are in love with a girl because you
happen to like the color of her eyes, or because there is a curve about
her lips that appeals to you.


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