"I don't know."
"No! But I know! And suppose I'd told you I'd got a wife living and then told you I wanted you--what then? No, Hilda! Nobody could fool about with you!"
She was flattered, but she thought secretly: "He could have won me on any terms he liked!... I wonder whether he could have won me on any terms!... That first night in this house, when we were in the front attic--suppose he'd told me then--I wonder! What should I have said?" But the severity of her countenance was a perfect mask for such weak and uncertain ideas, and confirmed him deeply in his estimate of her.
He continued:
"Now that first night in this house, upstairs!" He jerked his head towards the ceiling. She blushed, not from any shame, but because his thought had surprised hers. "I was as near as dammit to letting out the whole thing and chancing it with you. But I didn't--I saw it'd be no use. And that's not the only time either!"
She stood silent by the dressing-table, calmly looking at him, and she asked herself, eagerly curious: "When were the other times?"
"Of course it's all my fault!" he said.
"What is?"
"This!... All my fault! I don't want to excuse myself. I've nothing to say for myself."
In her mind she secretly interrupted him: "Yes, you have. You couldn't do without me--isn't that enough?"