“I stole your laurels,” said Margaret, and she seemed to snap out the words.
“You could have had the laurels,” said Annie, “without stealing, if I could have given them to you. It is not the laurels that matter. It is you.”
“I will kill myself if it ever is known,” said Margaret in a low horrified whisper. She cowered.
“It will never be known unless you yourself tell it,” said Annie.
“I cannot tell,” said Margaret. “I have thought it all over. I cannot tell and yet, how can I live and not tell?”
“I suppose,” said Alice Mendon, “that always when people do wrong, they have to endure punishment. I suppose that is your punishment, Margaret. You have always loved yourself and now you will have to despise yourself. I don't see any way out of it.”
“I am not the only woman who does such things,” said Margaret, and there was defiance in her tone.
“No doubt, you have company,” said Alice. “That does not make it easier for you.” Alice, large and fair in her white draperies, towered over Margaret Edes like an embodied conscience. She was almost unendurable, like the ideal of which the other woman had fallen short. Her mere presence was maddening. Margaret actually grimaced at her.
“It is easy for you to preach,” said she, “very easy, Alice Mendon. You have not a nerve in your whole body. You have not an ungratified ambition. You neither love nor hate yourself, or other people. You want nothing on earth enough to make the lack of it disturb you.”
“How well you read me,” said Alice and she smiled a large calm smile as a statue might smile, could she relax her beautiful marble mouth.