"I will. You love this girl...."
"Damn it! I've told you I hate her!" he broke out violently.
She tried hard to keep the contempt out of her voice. "You can hardly expect me to accept that, Morris," she said gravely.
"Why not? You're so precious anxious for the truth. That's the truth. Now you say you won't 'accept' it...."
Sophy sank wearily into her chair again. She found that it made her giddy to stand. Her hands were damp and cold. She felt physically ill. She covered her eyes for a moment, and in the momentary darkness her truest self whispered to her.
She uncovered her face and looked at him with that first gentle, quiet, to him inexplicable, look.
"Morris," she said softly, "don't you see? I want to be your friend—really your friend in all this. I ... I understand how it has happened. Yes ... better than you do perhaps. We ... we have drifted apart. Oh, don't think I'm reproaching you——" she interrupted herself proudly. "If you'll look back ... to ... to ... that time ... in Virginia. When...."
She couldn't go on for a moment.
"When that glamour was on us both," she continued. "You'll remember that I told you.... I warned you ... that it was glamour ... that some day ... some day...."
No. She could not go on. Love—when it has been real, if only for an hour—is always sacred. She sat very white, her chin in her hand, her eyes downcast.