"You are going to let me talk about it now, aren't you?" she asked, with a sort of childish urgency in her voice.
"Anything you like, or that is of any use to you," he replied levelly.
The necessity of self-expression is singularly strong in human nature. Sir Julian surmised that the only outlet in the case of Miss Marchrose's vehement and highly-strung personality lay in the exercise of a certain gift for elementary sincerity that made of her words something more than self-analytical outpouring.
"He has gone away," she said tonelessly. "But even before he went away I knew how it all was. I have been the most utter fool. You could hardly believe what a fool I've been. You know I told you the other day that I'd hardly ever been happier than I've been here?"
"I remember."
"Well, even then, I half knew that it was because of him. And very soon afterwards I knew it quite. And it seemed to me that I couldn't stop myself.... The thing I cared about was doing work for him, and being with him, and just at first it didn't occur to me that it would ever be anyone's business but mine. I mean, I never thought that anyone would notice, or that it would matter if they did."
Sir Julian thought of his own crusade against the thing that he termed officiousness.
"But of course," said Miss Marchrose, "I've had experience of business life, and I knew that in any office, the—the sort of things that make talk can never be tolerated for a minute. It's always stopped at once. Generally they send the woman away. And I thought that very likely that would happen to me, sooner or later."
"And you didn't mind? I understand," said Julian.
"No, I didn't mind," she repeated forlornly enough. "I seem to have got to a place where I can't feel ashamed of anything—otherwise I suppose that I shouldn't be telling you this."