"People only patronise me, when they think me unworthy of reproof."
"How can you say that!" he exclaimed. "I——" but she silenced him with a gesture.
"You've said it. That's why. I've never had one friend with whom there did not come a day, that he or she threw me over and cast my failings in my face. I'd believed it was different with you, I believed you trusted me; that you'd have trusted me through good and evil report—but no, you're like the rest. Society points its finger at me, and you accept its verdict, and you're right. You, secure in your social position, powerful, influential, you shall determine what is right and what is wrong, and I,—I must accept it without a murmur—I'm only a woman without a friend."
"No! no! no!" he cried vehemently. "You wrong me, you do not understand. No one can respect a woman more than I respect you. It's of some of your friends that I disapprove."
"A man is known by the company he keeps—how much more a woman. I'm like my friends—and you—you"—and for the moment she forgot to be meek and suffering, and her eyes blazed with passion—"you are the Pharisee of the nineteenth century, the hem of whose robe we outcasts are unworthy to touch!"
"How can you!" he cried, springing to his feet. "How can you do me so much wrong? It's not that you're like your friends. It is the fear that you may become so that moves me to speak as I do. But since you've seen fit to suspect me, you must allow me to justify myself. I know the affairs of this Colonel Darcy; know them as few others could, by virtue of my diplomatic position, and I assure you he has wronged and brutally treated one of the most beautiful and sweet-natured women I have ever seen. Treated her so badly that she was forced to flee to our Legation for assistance and protection. Imagine my feelings when you tell me that this man is your friend—when I hear your name coupled with his in the idle gossip of the smoking-room."
"I only know that Colonel Darcy was kind to me once upon a time," she replied, interrupting the flow of his eloquence.
"But what's that to do with this?"
"A man who can be kind to a woman in distress cannot be wholly bad."
"Why do you defend him?"