Barnaby smiled darkly at that. All her bravado, her witchy cackle – I will outlast you was a remark of such ego and youth that it made him want to laugh.
“Not so,” Barnaby retaliated, with a slow dawning smile of triumph. “I could haunt you for every year of your life. I could see every humiliation, and every hardship. I could arrive at your deathbed. I might see you become haggard and old and see sickness take you, if poverty or freak accident does not, and I will see you achieve nothing, watch all your dreams turn to dust. And I will be entertained by’t. Because I will outlast you: it is the privilege of the already dead.”
“Not so,” Barnaby retaliated, with a slow dawning smile of triumph. “I could haunt you for every year of your life. I could see every humiliation, and every hardship. I could arrive at your deathbed. I might see you become haggard and old and see sickness take you, if poverty or freak accident does not, and I will see you achieve nothing, watch all your dreams turn to dust. And I will be entertained by’t. Because I will outlast you: it is the privilege of the already dead.”
