She hardly knew what she was saying. She covered her face with her hands.
“A great deal worse!” repeated Helena, drawing away. Ursula started at the hardness which had come into the Freule’s voice. “That can only mean”—Helena got up and stood at the farther end of the seat. “I refuse to say it,” she continued. “I refuse to believe it. You two are mad.”
The dance-music came faster from the lawn. Ursula, her head bowed low upon her lap, felt that in her cup of unmerited bitterness not a drop was left undrunk.
“I want to know the truth,” Helena went on after a moment. “I have a right to know it to-night. If you still feel any love for Gerard, do him a good turn now. We are girls together. No one will hear you but I. Tell me exactly what there is to tell, and I will forgive him.”
“I have nothing to tell,” murmured Ursula.
The Freule stamped her foot.
“You are ruining his life,” she said. “I will never marry him till I know how much you have been to each other. What happens after marriage must be settled after marriage; but what happened before I will know now.”
“We have never been anything to each other,” whispered Ursula. “Oh, Freule, have pity, and let me alone!” But even as she spoke her mood changed. Why should she agonize to save this girl’s selfish happiness at the cost of her own honor, of an innocent victim’s peace? She lifted herself up. “Ask no confessions of me,” she said. “Ask them of your future husband. He is nothing to me. You have no right to assume that he ever was.”
Even in the shade she saw Helena change color. A long silence deepened between them. Somebody in another nook not far distant laughed shrilly. There was a clatter of glasses.
“What happened before I must know,” said Helena, at last. “I will never marry him until I do.”