"O God, if I could undo - if I could have it back, all this past month! It is useless! I behaved like the devil I am. That wretched quarrel! The very knowledge that I was in the wrong drove me to worse conduct! I have never been answerable to anyone for my misdeeds: there is a fiendish quality in me that revolts at the veriest hint of - but how should you understand? It is not worthy of being understood!"
She covered her face with her hands. Worth walked across the room to the door, and went out.
Judith said in a kinder tone: "I do understand in part. I was not always so docile as you think me. But Charles! There is such a sweetness of temper, such nobility of mind -"
"Stop!" Barbara cried fiercely. "Do you think I don't know it?" I knew it when he first came up to me, and I looked into his eyes, and loved him. I knew myself to be unworthy! The only thing I did that I am not ashamed of now was to try not to let him persuade me into becoming engaged to him. That impulse was the noblest I have ever felt. Though I knew I should not, I yielded. I wanted him, and all my life I have taken what I wanted, without thought or compunction!" She gave a wild laugh. "You despise me, but you should also pity me, for I have enough heart to wish I had more."
"I do pity you," Judith said, considerably move "But having yielded -"
"Yes! Having yielded, why could I not submit? I do not know, unless it be that from the day I marrie Jasper Childe I swore I would never do so, never allow myself to be possessed, or governed, or even guide: Don't misunderstand me! I am not trying to find excuses for myself. The fault lies deeper: it is in my curst nature!"
"I have sometimes thought," Judith said, after a short pause, "that the circumstances of your engagement made it particularly trying for you. In this little town we are obliged to live in a crowded circle from which there can be no escape. One's every action is remarked, and discussed. It is as though your engagement to Charley; was acted upon a stage, in all the glare of footlights, for the amusement of your acquaintances."
"Oh, if you but knew!" Barbara exclaimed. "You do,in part, realise the evils of my situation but you cannot know what a demon was roused in me by finding myself the object of every form of cheap wit on the one hand, and of benign approval upon the other! It was said that I had met my match, that I was tamed at last, that I should soon settle down to a life of humdrum propriety! You would have had the strength to disregard such nonsense: I had not. When I was with Charles it did not signify. Every annoyance ,was forgotten in his presence; even my damnable restlessness left me. But he was busy; he could not be always at my side; and when he was away from me I was bored. If he had married me when I begged him to! But no! It would not have answered. There must still have been temptation."
"Yes, I am very sensible of that. You are so much admired: it must have been hard indeed to give up your -" She hesitated.
"My flirtations," said Barbara, with a melancholy smile. "It was hard. You know that I did not give them up. When I look back upon the past month it is with loathing, believe me! It was as though I was swept into a whirlpool! I could not be still."