How idle it was, to posture and use grandiose words! Why did she shrink from the complete submission that her presence here implied? No amount of self-assertion would do away with the natural law of which he had contemptuously reminded her, the law which distinguishes man and woman, and denies to one what is permitted to the other.
"I passed the night by a sick-bed," she replied, letting her voice drop into weariness—"Madeline Denyer's."
"Did you go there directly on leaving home?"
"No."
"Will you tell me where else you went?"
"I went first of all to see Mr. Mallard. I talked with him for a long time, and he gave me some tea. Then he came part of the way back with me. Shall I try and remember the exact spot where he got out of the cab?"
"What had you to do with Mallard, Cecily?"
"I had to tell him that my life was a failure, and to thank him for having wished to save me from this fate."
Her answers were given in a dull monotone; she seemed to be heedless of the impression they made.
"You said that to Mallard?"