"I have said all I can say in the letter. I deserve all your anger."
That was the note he dreaded, the too well remembered note of pathetic submission. It reminded him with intolerable force that he had never held her by any bond save that of her gratitude.
"Do you really imagine," he exclaimed, "that I could go on with make-believe—that I could bring myself to put faith in you again for a moment?"
"I don't ask you to," Eve replied, in firmer accents. "I have lost what little respect you could ever feel for me. I might have repaid you with honesty—I didn't do even that. Say the worst you can of me, and I shall think still worse of myself."
The voice overcame him with a conviction of her sincerity, and he gazed at her, marvelling.
"Are you honest now? Anyone would think so; yet how am I to believe it?"
Eve met his eyes steadily.
"I will never again say one word to you that isn't pure truth. I am at your mercy, and you may punish me as you like."
"There's only one way in which I can punish you. For the loss of my respect, or of my love, you care nothing. If I bring myself to tell Narramore disagreeable things about you, you will suffer a disappointment, and that's all. The cost to me will be much greater, and you know it. You pity yourself. You regard me as holding you ungenerously by an advantage you once gave me. It isn't so at all. It is I who have been held by bonds I couldn't break, and from the day when you pretended a love you never felt, all the blame lay with you."
"What could I do?"