"He had just come," she said. "He came in. I didn't ask him to. He had not—" a little note like fright or triumph beat into her voice—"he had not—kissed me."
She turned to him as if for a confirmation he could not in honesty refuse her, and Madame Beattie burst into a laugh, one of perfect acceptance of things as they are, human frailties among the first.
"Esther," she said, "you're a little fool. If you want a divorce what do you give yourself away for? Your counsel wouldn't let you."
The whole implication was astounding to Jeff; but the only thing he could fix definitely was the concrete possibility that she had counsel.
"Who is your counsel, Esther?" he asked her.
But Esther had gone farther than discretion bade.
"I am not obliged to say," she answered, with a stubbornness equal to his own, whatever that might prove. "I am not obliged to say anything. But I do think I have a right to ask you to tell Aunt Patricia that I have not taken you back, in any sense whatever. Not—not condoned."
She slipped on the word and he guessed that it had been used to her and that although she considered it of some value, she had not technically taken it in.
"What had you to condone in me, Esther?" he asked her gently. Suddenly she seemed to him most pathetic in her wilful folly. She had always been, she would always be, he knew, a creature who ruled through her weakness, found it an asset, traded on it perhaps, and whereas once this had seemed to him enchanting, now, in the face of ill-fortune it looked pitifully inadequate and base.
"I was afraid of you," she insisted. "I am now."