"Now you see what I am! And you might have been my friend!" she murmured. "But you don't know how unhappy I am."
"I don't believe you're unhappy at all," said Alice with blunt barbarity.
"Not unhappy!" exclaimed Ora in dismay. If she were not unhappy, the whole structure tumbled.
"You will be, though," Alice pursued relentlessly. "You'll be very unhappy when Mr. Fenning comes, and I think you'd be unhappy if by any chance he didn't come." She paused and looked at her visitor. "I shouldn't like to be like you," she said thoughtfully.
Ora sat quiet; there was a scared look on her face; she turned her eyes up to Alice who sat on a higher chair.
"Why do you say that sort of thing to me?" she asked in a low voice.
"It's quite true. I shouldn't. And all the rest is true too." Her voice grew harder and harder in opposition to an inner pleading for mercy. This woman should not wheedle her into lies; she would tell the truth for once, although Ora did sit there—looking like a child condemned to rigorous punishment.
"It's not decent the way you talk about it, and let people talk about it," she broke out in a burst of indignation. "Have you no self-respect? Don't you know how people talk about you? Oh, I wouldn't be famous at the price of that!"
Ora did not cry; the hurt was beyond tears; she grew white, her eyes were wide and her lips parted; she watched Alice as a dog seems to watch for the next fall of the whip.