"Oh, you never formulated it in so many words, I know that! You are too self-conscious to be introspective and are actually proud of the fact that you never stop to analyse either yourself or your motives. So you go blundering through life without in the least realising what are the influences which shape your actions. You fancy that you are not self-centred because you are too shy, yes, and too vain to probe the hidden recesses of your heart. You imagine that you are unselfish because you make daily sacrifices to your own ideal of conduct. But of that utter forgetfulness of self, of that complete merging and submerging of your identity in another's, you have never had even the vaguest conception. When you married me, it never occurred to you that I had the right to demand both love and comprehension. You, the idealist, expected me to be satisfied with the material advantages you offered; but I, the degraded creature you take me to be, had I known the truth, would never have consented to sell my birthright for a mess of pottage."
"That sounds all very fine, and I confess I may not have been a perfect husband, but after all, what would you have done, I should like to know, if I had not married you?"
"Done? I would have worked and hoped, and if work had failed me, I would have begged and hoped. I would even have starved, before abandoning the hope that some day I should find the man who was destined for me. When I at last realised that you did not love me, you cannot imagine my despair. I consumed myself in futile efforts to please you, but the very intensity of my love prevented me from exercising those arts and artifices which might have brought you to my feet. My emotion in your presence was so great that it sealed my lips and made you find me a dull companion."
"I never thought you dull. You know very well that it was not that which alienated me from you. When I married you, I may not have been what is called in love with you, but I was certainly fond of you, and if you had behaved yourself, I should no doubt in time have become more closely united to you. You talk of 'consuming' yourself to please me. Nice, effective word, that! I must add it to my vocabulary. But you chose a strange means of gaining my affections when you took to disgracing yourself both privately and publicly."
The passionate resentment which had transfigured her slowly faded from Amy's face, leaving it drawn and old; her voice, when she spoke, sounded infinitely weary.
"When I knew for a certainty that a lukewarm affection was all you would ever feel for me, I lost hope, and in losing hope, I lost my foothold on life. I wanted to die—I determined to die. Time and time again, I pressed your pistol to my forehead, but something stronger than my will always prevented me from pulling the trigger; and finally I sought forgetfulness in drink, because I had not the courage to find it in death. At first I tried to hide my condition from you, but there came a moment when the sight of your bland self-satisfaction became unbearable, when your absolute unconsciousness of the havoc you had made of my life maddened me. I wanted you to suffer! Oh, not as I had suffered, you are not capable of that; but at any rate I could hurt your vanity and deal a death-blow to your pride! You had disgraced me when you tricked me into giving myself to a man who did not love me; I determined to disgrace you by reeling through the public streets. And I was glad, glad!" she cried with indescribable bitterness. "When I saw you grow pale with anger, when I saw you tremble with shame, I suppose you fancy that I must, at times, have suffered from remorse and humiliation? I swear that never for a moment have I regretted the course I chose. I am ashamed of nothing except that I lacked the courage to kill myself. Drink? I bless it! How I welcomed the gradual deadening of my senses, the dulling of my fevered brain! When I awoke from my long torpor and found myself at Charleroi, I cursed the doctor who had brought me back to life. Little by little the old agony returned. The thought of you haunted me day and night, while a raging thirst racked my body, and from this twofold torture the constant supervision of the nurses prevented me from obtaining even a temporary respite. It was hell!"
For a moment Cyril felt a wave of pity sweep over him, but suddenly he stiffened.
"You forget to mention that—consolation was offered you."
"Consolation! Had I found that, I should not be here! I admit, however, that when I first noticed that M. de Brissac was attracted by me, I was mildly pleased. It was a solace to my wounded vanity to find that some one still found me desirable. But I swear that it never even occurred to me to give myself to him, till the doctor told me that you were coming to take me away with you. See you again? Subject myself anew to your indifference—your contempt? Never! So I took the only means of escaping from you which offered itself. And I am glad, glad that I flung myself into the mire, for by defiling love, I killed it. I am at last free from the obsession which has been the torment of my life. Neither you nor any other man will again fire my imagination or stir my senses. I am dead, but I am also free—free!"
As she spoke the last words her expression was so exalted that Cyril was forced to grant her his grudging admiration. As she stood before him, she seemed more a spirit than a woman; she seemed the incarnation of life, of love, of the very fundamentals of existence. She was really an extraordinary woman; why did he not love her, he asked himself. But even as this flashed through his mind the memory of his long martyrdom obtruded itself. He saw her again not as she appeared then, but as the central figure in a succession of loathsome scenes.