The colour rushed over Theresa's face, and she stammered as she spoke; but it was fear, not pride, that swamped her; though, in after silences, the words echoed back to her thrillingly.
"You must let me sleep with you. I can't let you have attacks all alone in the dark like that. Pain"—she breathed the word—"must be so terrible alone. Doesn't Father wake? I should, if you moved."
"So would he, but I don't move, you see. And I'm not going to be parted from him for the time that may be so short. And I've endured worse pangs, Theresa, far worse. Thank God, they're over." The faint smile deepened, the corners of her mouth were reminiscent, her lips had the softness of a girl's. "Where you give love, give trust, Theresa, when your great time comes."
The wavering colour came back to Theresa's cheeks. She looked pityingly, adoringly, at her mother, and then her brain seemed to swell with reckless anger.
"I'll never love!" she cried, "because I must trust where I love, and men—men are so faithless! Oh, I know!" She ceased, trembling, watching her slim, shaken wrists. She heard laughter.
"Is this books, or Bessie?" And then, as Theresa raised her face, "Terry! What has happened? Nothing to you—or Grace?"
"No, no, dear, it's just the things I hear about. Truly." She was on her knees, stroking her mother's face, aghast at her own carelessness. "It's Grace who is unfaithful, and no one gives a thought to me!"
"You are so dramatic, dear! Don't give way to the temptation."
"I know," Theresa murmured. "It's wicked of me." But this time her outburst had had no impulse but what came from her own indignant heart.
"You're not always sure, are you, of what you really feel?"