Patricia's eyes flew to the canvas, now covered, which stood upon the easel.
"But ..." she began.
"You drive me perfectly mad!" cried Amy, suddenly beside herself with impatience. "You ask questions. You're like a child. You don't know what torment is. You don't know what it is to be bothered the whole time with all this ... never to get away from it."
"It can't be very healthy," said Patricia. Amy showed her teeth in an angry smile. She did not answer for several minutes, during which her face became set in an expression of discontented egotism.
"Sometimes I think I'll marry Jack just to find out what marriage is like," she said at last. "I could always leave him and go off on my own."
"Poor Jack!" thought Patricia. She said aloud: "He wouldn't like that."
"Oho, he wouldn't be any worse off than he is now."
"He'd be prevented from marrying anybody else."
"If I left him I shouldn't mind what he did," explained Amy. "Of course, he could divorce me."
Patricia thought she had never heard such confident expression of selfishness. It was one thing, she felt, for her to be selfish, because she really was wonderful; but to hear Amy speaking as though she had no need to consider others struck Patricia as almost abominable. She was pleased with the word—it was almost abominable. There was a long silence, while their thoughts ranged.