"No," he responded, "it cannot be said that you were."
"It was so—so revolting to me after it was over," she went on, "that it seemed to make me more weak-minded than ever. When you once give way to your emotions it is all going down-hill—you do it again and again. I never did it before, but I have been on the verge of doing it two or three times since."
"Don't go any farther than the verge," he said.
"I don't intend to," she answered. "I don't like even the verge. I resent it with all my strength. I should like to invent some kind of horrible torture to pay myself for—for what I did."
He was watching her very closely, but she was not aware of it. She had arrested his attention completely enough by this time, and the fact made itself evident in his intent and rather startled expression.
"I hope it was nothing very serious," he said.
"It was serious enough for me," she replied. "Nobody else was hurt, but it was serious enough for me—the mere knowing that for a few minutes I had lost my hold on myself. I didn't like it—I didn't like it!"
There was an intensity in her manner, in her voice, in her face, in her very figure itself, which was curiously disproportionate to her words. She leaned forward a little, and laid her small, clenched hand upon her knee.
"In all my life," she said, slowly,—"in all my life, I have never had a feeling which was as strong as myself. I have been that fortunate. I have been angry, but never so angry that I could not seem perfectly still and calm; I have been happy, but never so happy that I could not have hidden it if I chose; I have been unhappy—for a moment or so—but never so unhappy that I had the horrible anguish of being found out. I am not capable of strong, real emotions, I am too shallow and—and light. I have been light all my life, and I will be light until the end.
"Only the children could make me suffer, really," she said after it,—"only the children, and all women are like that. Through Janey, or Jack, or Meg, my heart could be torn in two, if they were in pain, or badly treated, or taken from me,—that is nothing but common nature; but nothing else could hurt me so that I should cry out—nothing and nobody—not even Richard!"