"I am honest!" Maggie broke in. Her aunt went on:
"You have used the liberty we gave you during these weeks to make yourself the talk of our friends. You have been meeting Mr. Martin Warlock secretly every day. You have been alone with him in the Park and at the theatre. I know that you are young and very ignorant. You could not have known that Martin Warlock is a man with whom no girl who respects herself would be seen alone—"
"That is untrue!" Maggie flamed out.
"—and," went on Aunt Anne, "we would have forgiven that. It is your deceit to ourselves that we cannot forget. Day after day you were meeting him and pretending that you went to your other friends. I am disappointed in you, bitterly disappointed. I saw from the first that you did not mean to care for us, now, as well, you have disgraced us—"
Maggie began: "Yes, I have been seeing Martin. I didn't think it wrong—I don't now. I didn't tell you because I was afraid that you would stop me—"
"Then that shows that you knew it was wrong."
"No, Aunt Anne—only that you would think it was wrong. I can only go by myself, by what I feel is wrong I mean. I've always had to, all my life. It would have been no good doing anything else at home, because father—"
She pulled herself up. She was not going to defend herself or ask for pity. She said, speaking finally:
"Yes, I have been out with Martin every day. I went to the theatre with him, too, and also had tea with him."
Maggie could see Aunt Anne's anger rising higher and higher like water in a tube. Her voice was hard when she spoke again—she pronounced judgment: