CHLOE. My husband. [She draws in her breath with a long shudder, then seem to seize her courage in her hands] I've got to be quick. He keeps on asking—he knows there's something.
HILLCRIST. Make your mind easy. We shan't tell him.
CHLOE. [Appealing] Oh! that's not enough. Can't you tell him something to put him back to thinking it's all right? I've done him such a wrong. I didn't realise till after—I thought meeting him was just a piece of wonderful good luck, after what I'd been through. I'm not such a bad lot—not really.
[She stops from the over-quivering of her lips. JILL, standing beside the chair, strokes her shoulder. HILLCRIST stands very still, painfully biting at a finger.]
You see, my father went bankrupt, and I was in a shop——
HILLCRIST. [Soothingly, and to prevent disclosures] Yes, yes; Yes, yes!
CHLOE. I never gave a man away or did anything I was ashamed of—at least—I mean, I had to make my living in all sorts of ways, and then I met Charlie.
[Again she stopped from the quivering of her lips.]
JILL. It's all right.
CHLOE. He thought I was respectable, and that was such a relief, you can't think, so—so I let him.