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"I don't think so. I'll tell you later, after a good night's sleep." "I thought we were bantering," said Peter. "Bandying insults." "We were," said Wang-mu. "But I believe them all."
Peter winced. "Then I'm hurt, too."
"You don't know how to hurt," said Wang-mu. "You're just mocking me."
Peter pushed aside his plate and stood up. "I'll see you back at the apartment. Think you can find the way?"
"Do I think you actually care?"
"It's a good thing I have no soul," said Peter. "That's the only thing that stops you from devouring it."
"If I ever had your soul in my mouth," said Wang-mu, "I would spit it out."
"Get some rest," said Peter. "For the work I have ahead, I need a mind, not a quarrel." He walked out of the restaurant. The clothing fit him badly. People looked. He was a man of too much dignity and strength to dress so foppishly. Wang-mu saw at once that it shamed him. She saw also that he knew it, that he moved swiftly because he knew this clothing was wrong for him. He would undoubtedly have Jane order him something older looking, more mature, more in keeping with his need for honor.
Whereas I need something that will make me disappear. Or better yet, clothing that will let me fly away from here, all in a single night, fly Outside and back In to the house of Han Fei-tzu, where I can look into eyes that show neither pity nor scorn.
Nor pain. For there is pain in Peter's eyes, and it was wrong of me to say he felt none. It was wrong of me to value my own pain so highly that I thought it gave me the right to inflict more on him.
If I apologize to him, he'll mock me for it.
But then, I would rather be mocked for doing a good thing than to be respected, knowing I have done wrong. Is that a principle Han Fei-tzu taught me? No. I was born with that one. Like my mother said, too much pride, too much pride.
When she returned to the apartment, however, Peter was asleep; exhausted, she postponed her apology and also slept. Each of them woke during the night, but never at the same time; and in the morning, the edge of last night's quarrel had worn off. There was business at hand, and it was more important for her to understand what they were going to attempt to do today than for her to heal a