Margot.

I should have been embittered just the same--you're right--but I should not have let myself fall.

Ebeling.

Who knows?

Margot.

Never! And I'll tell you something to prove it. Severely as I have been watched--and--surely there's nothing coquettish about me?

Ebeling.

Certainly not.

Margot.

You can believe me when I say that, in the general moral tone prevailing over our society just now--and of which our mothers naturally know nothing--there lurks a temptation which has over and over again enticed even me. Such things are so personal, so secret--one cannot describe them. Oh, I could have done whatever I wished! But I said to myself: the first time, you were ignorant, you were sacrificed--or, at least, you can talk it into yourself that you were sacrificed--but if ever again--no, I can't say it after all!