"But if he found out from anyone but Mrs. Fulton—you see he isn't very well and he might do something crazy—something tragic. You see if you told him what you'd seen, he might act before anyone had a chance to explain."
I was trying to make the matter sound more serious than I felt it to be. Whatever happened, I did not think that Fulton was the kind of man who forgets his education and his civilization, but I wanted, if I could, to frighten Hilda into secrecy.
"You'd not want to get me all shot up, would you, Hilda?"
She was silent for a time, as if weighing pros and cons in her head. Then she looked up at me and said:
"When I saw, I didn't do anything crazy."
"Hilda," I said, "he has to be hurt and you have to be hurt. That's always been the way with love—it always will be."
She was silent again. Then she said in a low voice that carried with it a certain power to thrill: "He'd die for her. And I'd die for you. But he's only a worn-out glove, and I'm only a common servant. She thinks she'd die for you, and you think you'd die for her. But you're both wrong. A woman that won't stand by her babies isn't going to die for anyone, not if she knows it. A man that gets to your age without marrying any of the women he's gone with isn't going to die for anyone if he can help it. Wait till you've crossed her selfish will a few times and see how much she'll die for you; wait till she begins to use you the way she used him. A whole lot you'll want to die for—her—then——"
"I can't listen to this, Hilda."
"You will listen, or else I'll scream and say you attacked me—a whole lot she'll feel like dying for you then. Servants have eyes and ears and hearts. There's servants in that house that know how things used to be, who see how things are now, since you came philandering around. And do you know what those servants think of her, and what I think of her for the way she's treated him? Oh, they like her well enough because she's gentle and easy-going, and good-tempered and easy to get on with; but there isn't a servant in that house would change characters with her. We think she's the kind of woman that's beneath contempt—lazy, selfish, spendthrift—always pampering number one—and going about the world looking like a sad, bruised lily. Do you think the servants in that house don't know all about your goings and comings, and the life you've led, the harm you've done and didn't have to do, the good you might have done, and didn't?"
"But, Hilda——"