"That would have been very sudden. I had never seen you before that."
"Nevertheless it was so. I don't mind owning it to you now, though I never, never, would own it to any one else. When you came to us at the theatre I was sure that no one else could ever have been so good. I certainly did love you then."
"Hardly that, Ayala."
"I did," she said. "Now I have told you everything, and if you choose to think I have been bad,—why you must think so, and I must put up with it."
"Bad, my darling?"
"I suppose it was bad to fall in love with a man like that; and very bad to give him the trouble of coming so often. But now I have made a clean breast of it, and if you want to scold me you must scold me now. You may do it now, but you must never scold me afterwards,—because of that." It may be left to the reader to imagine the nature of the scolding which she received.
Then on their way home she thanked him for all the good that he had done to all those belonging to her. "I have heard it all from Lucy;—how generous you have been to Isadore."
"That has all come to nothing," he said.
"How come to nothing? I know that you sent him the money."
"I did offer to lend him something, and, indeed, I sent him a cheque; but two days afterwards he returned it. That tremendous uncle of yours—"