“You know about me—how I’ve been engaged to one man after another—and broken the engagements.”
“Because you were trying to find the right one.”
“It wasn’t only that. I thought of myself; I didn’t think of them. I let them offer me everything they had to give—and pretended to accept it—just to experiment—to play with—and now—now I’m—I’m caught!”
“Caught—in what way?”
She tossed her hands outward in a little, exasperated gesture.
“I can’t do the same thing again. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be sane.”
“The same thing? Do tell me what you mean.”
“It’s—it’s one of the same men. I’m—I’m caught. It’s what mother—and Elsie Coningsby—and other people who could talk to me plainly—told me would happen some day. I’m—I’m punished. And I can’t do the same thing the second time.”
It was still to escape from the yawning hell into which I felt myself going down that I said, stupidly, “Why can’t you?”
“Because I can’t. It’s what I said just now. It wouldn’t be sane. I’ve made a kind of history for myself. If I were to do the same thing again it wouldn’t merely seem cruel, it would seem crazy.”