Mrs. Kennedy wasn’t shocked, in a moral sense. She didn’t dwell much upon that side of the case. Her great concern was with practical problems—above all, how they were to get the money which she knew would be needed. She always spoke of girls in similar situations as "unfortunate," and that is just the way she saw it.
She sat at the bedside, trying her best to make some sort of plan.
CHAPTER TWO
I
But Angelica herself! That she should be undergoing this horror, this nightmare, this incredible thing she had heard of and read of!
"Oh, mommer!" she cried. "Oh, mommer! It’s the worst thing I ever heard of! I’m the worst——”
"Hush, deary! Don’t talk so wild. It’s bad, I must admit, but you’re young, and I dare say you loved the man and trusted in him, to your sorrow."
Angelica turned her face to the wall. That was the very worst of it. She hadn’t really trusted Vincent at all. She had simply followed an instinct of which she understood nothing. She had been dazzled by his words, been deluded through compassion, through recklessness, through desire, into throwing herself away upon a man who cared nothing for her, who had no affection, no human kindness. He didn’t care what happened to her. If she had been willing to stay with him a little longer, he would have been willing to "love" her a little longer; but when she had decided to leave him, he offered no resistance. He would quite easily forget her, she knew.
Useless to tell herself that the conventional code of morality meant nothing to her. It did! She had fancied herself superior to all that, but that was because she hadn’t known or imagined what such a surrender meant. Just to run into his arms, without ceremony, without any promise, any covenant, without regard for any other human creature, reckless of her own future, flinging away her pride, her freedom, her decency. That wasn’t beautiful. That wasn’t love. What in God’s name was it?
She had not even happy memories. It was shame to remember her past joy. She loathed herself for her past ecstasy. A perfect terror of her own infamy swept over her.