"Yes; but you don't know how I came to be a fool."
"Is there any reason why I should know—now that the fact is there?"
He looked at her steadily. "Edith! What are you made of?"
She returned his look. "I think—of stone. Up till to-day I've been a woman of flesh and blood; but I'm not sure that I am any longer. You can't kill the heart in a woman's body—and still expect her to feel."
"But, Edith—Edith darling—there's no reason why I should have killed the heart in your body when I never dreamed of doing you a wrong—that is, an intentional wrong," he corrected.
"You knew you were doing some woman a wrong—some future woman, the woman you'd marry—as far back as when you took up what Billy Cummings dropped from his dead hands—"
"Oh, that! That, dear, is nothing but the talk of feminist meetings. Men are men, and women are women. You can't make one law for them both. Besides, it's too big a subject to go into now."
"I'm not trying to. I wasn't thinking of men in general; I was thinking only of you."
"But, good Lord, Edith, you don't think I've been better than any one else, do you?"
Her forlorn smile made his heart ache. "I did think so. I dare say it was a mistake."