“Better, I fear, than I have used it,” he answered quietly.
“I do not quite see. How could you ill-use the world?” There was faint irony in her voice now. A change seemed to have come upon her.
“By ill-using any one person we ill-use society—the world”—he meaningly replied.
“Whom have you ill-used?” She did not look at him.
“Many—you chiefly.”
“How have you—most-ill-used me?”
“By letting you think well of me—you have done so, have you not?”
She did not speak, but lowered her head, and caught her breath slightly. There was a silence. Then she said: “There was no reason why I should—But you must not say these things to me. My husband—”
“Your husband knows all.”
“But that does not alter it,” she urged firmly. “Though he may be willing you should speak of these things, I am not.”