"I want you to be happy, Barbara, just as I intend to be.
Back there in Chicago there are plenty of girls on Grand
Avenue as straight and clean and fine as they make 'em on
Riverside Drive. Girls of my own kind, they are, and I'm
going back there to find the one that God intended for me.
You've taught me what a good girl can do toward making a
man of a beast. You've taught me pride and self-respect.
You've taught me so much that I'd rather that I'd died back
there beneath the spears of Oda Iseka's warriors than live here
beneath the sneers and contempt of servants, and the pity and
condescension of your friends.
"I want you to be happy, Barbara, and so I want you to
promise me that you'll marry Billy Mallory. There isn't any
man on earth quite good enough for you; but Mallory comes
nearer to it than anyone I know. I've heard 'em talking about
him around town since I came back--and there isn't a rotten
story chalked up against him nowhere, and that's a lot more
than you can say for ninety-nine of a hundred New Yorkers
that are talked about at all.
"And Mallory's a man, too--the kind that every woman
ought to have, only they ain't enough of 'em to go 'round.
Do you remember how he stood up there on the deck of the
Lotus and fought fair against my dirty tricks? He's a man and
a gentleman, Barbara--the sort you can be proud of, and
that's the sort you got to have.
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