"I like him," she said. "I like him—enough, I suppose. He is good—and kind—and gentle. He will be good to me. And I shall try very, very hard to make him happy." Quite suddenly and without warning the fire of her anger burnt up again. She flamed defiance in the man's face.
"How dare you question me?" she cried. "What right have you to ask me questions about such a thing? You, what you are!"
Ste. Marie bent his head.
"No right, mademoiselle," said he in a low voice. "I have no right to ask you anything—not even forgiveness. I think I am a little mad to-day. It—this news came to me suddenly. Yes, I think I am a little mad." The girl stared at him and he looked back with sombre eyes. Once more he was stabbed with intolerable pain to think what she was. Yet in an inexplicable fashion it pleased him that she should carry out her trickery to the end with a high head. It was a little less base done proudly. He could not have borne it otherwise.
"Who are you," the girl cried in a bitter resentment, "that you should understand? What do you know of the sort of life I have led—we have led together, my father and I?—Oh, I don't mean that I'm ashamed of it! We have nothing to feel shame for, but you simply do not know what such a life is."
Though he writhed with pain, the man nodded over her. He was so glad that she could carry it through proudly, with a high hand, an erect head.
She spread out her arms before him, a splendid and tragic figure.
"What chance have I ever had?" she demanded. "No, I am not blaming him. I am not blaming my father! I chose to follow him. I chose it! But what chance have I had? Think of the people I have lived among! Would you have me marry one of them—one of those men? I'd rather die! And yet I cannot go on—forever. I am twenty now. What if my father—You yourself said yesterday—Oh, I am afraid! I tell you I have lain awake at night a hundred times and shivered with cold, terrible fear of what would become of me if—if anything should happen—to my father.
"And so," she said, "when I met Arthur Benham last winter and he—began to—he said—when he begged me to marry him.... Ah, can't you see? It meant safety—safety—safety! And I liked him. I like him now—very, very much. He is a sweet boy. I—shall be happy with him—in a peaceful fashion. And my father——
"Oh, I'll be honest with you," said she. "It was my father who decided me. He was—he is—so pathetically pleased with it! He so wants me to be safe! It's all he lives for now. I—couldn't fight against them both. Arthur and my father.