"It's borne in on me," she said, "that the woman in us isn't meant to matter. She's simply the victim of the Will-to-do-things. It puts the bit into our mouths and drives us the way we must go. It's like a whip laid across our shoulders whenever we turn aside."
She paused in her vehemence.
"Jinny—have you ever reckoned with your beastly genius?"
Jane stirred in her corner. "I suppose," she said, "if it's any good I'll have to pay for it."
"You'll have to pay for it with everything you've got and with everything you haven't got and might have had. With a genius like yours, Jinny, there'll be no end to your paying. You may make up your mind to that."
"I wonder," said Jane, "how much George will have to pay?"
"Nothing. He'll make his wife pay. You'd have paid if he'd married you."
"I wonder. Nina—he was worth it. I'd have paid ten times over. So would you."
"I have paid. I paid beforehand. Which is a mistake."
She looked down at her feet. They were fine and feminine, Nina's feet, and exquisitely shod. She frowned at them as if they had offended her.