"Ah, that is it?" she added. "You are satisfied to hate and detest me because you can't help it. That seems to you a final and unanswerable excuse. But nobody else may do anything because she can't help it."
"But you could have helped what you have done," said Jessie. "You made Archie think you cared for him. You let him fall in love with you on that assumption."
"He let himself fall in love with me," said Helena. "That was not my fault. Besides…"
She was silent a moment, weaving delicate spider-threads in her mind. She really wanted to propitiate Jessie just now, otherwise she would certainly have reminded her that she, anyhow, had allowed herself to fall in love with Archie, though she would not say that that was Archie's fault. It would have been amusing to suggest that, but it did not seem to tend towards reconciliation. She bent her graceful head a little lower over the fallen card-house. It had collapsed with tragic suddenness, even as Archie had collapsed.
"Besides," she went on, "it was open to Archie to propose to me. He did not. We were several weeks together at Silorno. And then I came to London and met Bertie. Was it my fault that I fell in love with him? I think you are horribly unkind to me."
Jessie came a step nearer.
"Are you in love with him?" she asked. "If you tell me you are in love with him…"
"Do you think I should marry him if I was not?" asked Helena, looking the picture of limpid, childlike innocence.
Jessie made no reply. She could not say that she believed Helena was in love with him, though she was assuredly going to marry him. She could not tell a lie of that essential kind; merely the words would not come.
"If I have wronged you in any way, Helena," she said at length, "I am most sincerely sorry for it. I ask your forgiveness unconditionally."