He caught only the celestial reassurance of her reply. How fine, how sympathetic she was! But he hastened to immolate himself. Her unexpected question had thrown him off the track; he forgot that his concealment of his marriage was the only circumstance for which he had foreseen the world’s blame, and he answered, desperately,
“Because I married for money.”
“For money,” she repeated, in a toneless voice.
He was cold and sick with shame. Despite her experience of the coarser side of life, such a contingency was, he felt, quite beyond her comprehension. That money played no part in her consciousness he would have divined, even if her friend had not informed him of the fact in their first talk. An impulse had driven him to humble himself, a counter-instinct now spurred him to excuse himself.
“It was to pursue my art career,” he said, deprecatingly. Even now he would not speak of the younger children he had had to support.
She turned her head again, and the smile was struggling back, and her voice had an echo of the old enthusiastic ring.
“Then you married for Art, not for money!”
“Ah, do not comfort me! My God, how I am punished!”
She veered round now. Her tones were low and trembling with compassion.