"You say you're unhappy. Lots of us are unhappy, but we don't tell all the world about it. And we don't hug our unhappiness either and make a play out of it." What Ashley had reluctantly and secretly thought came in stern and cutting plainness from Alice's lips; but Ashley would have died sooner than breathe a word of it to Ora.
"I suppose," said Alice, "you think I'm angry because—because of something that concerns myself. I'm not, I'm just telling you the truth." She was sure that it was the truth, however it might be inspired, however it was that she had come to utter it. "What does that man say about you when you aren't there? He says almost everything to your face! And you laugh! What does he say after dinner, what does he say at his club?"
"Please let me go home," said Ora. "Please let me go home." She seemed almost to stagger as she rose. "I must go home," she said, "Or—or I shan't have time for dinner."
"I suppose you like—" Alice began, but she stopped herself. She had said enough; the face before her seemed older, thinner, drawn into lines that impaired its beauty, as it were scarred with a new knowledge; the eyes that met hers were terrified. "It's all true," she said to herself again. "Quite true. Only nobody has ever told her the truth."
She rang the bell, but did not go with Ora to the door; neither of them thought of shaking hands; a quarter of an hour before Ora would have offered one of her ready kisses. Now she went quietly and silently to the door and opened it with timid noiselessness. As she went out, she looked back over her shoulder; a movement from Alice, the holding out of a hand, would have brought her back in a flood of tears and a burst of pitiful protests at once against herself and against the accusations laid to her charge. No sign came; Alice stood stern and immovable.
"I'm late as it is. Good-bye," whispered Ora.
She went out. Alice stood still where she was for a moment before she flung herself into a chair, exclaiming again, and this time aloud,
"It's true, it's true; every word of it's the truth!" She was very anxious to convince herself that every word of it was true.