“Why do you catalogue my injuries when your point is to deny them?”
Henriette rose with a vivid flush.
“Hadria, Hubert is one of the best men in England. I——”
“When have I disputed that?”
Hadria advanced towards Miss Temperley, and stood looking her full in the face.
“I believe that Hubert has acted conscientiously, according to his standard. But I detest his standard. He did not think it wrong or treacherous to behave as he did towards me. But it is that very fact that I so bitterly resent. I could have forgiven him a sin against myself alone, which he acknowledged to be a sin. But this is a sin against my entire sex, which he does not acknowledge to be a sin. It is the insolence that is implied in supposing it allowable for a man to trick a woman in that way, without the smallest damage to his self-respect, that sticks so in my throat. What does it imply as regards his attitude towards all women? Ah! it is that which makes me feel so rancorous. And I resent Hubert’s calm assumption that he had a right to judge what was best for me, and even to force me, by fraud, into following his view, leaving me afterwards to adjust myself with circumstance as best I might: to make my bitter choice between unconditional surrender, and the infliction of pain and distress, on him, on my parents, on everybody. Ah, you calculated cunningly, Henriette! I am a coward about giving pain, little as you may now be disposed to credit it. You have tight hold of the end of my chain.”
Hadria was pacing restlessly up and down the room. Little Martha ran out with her doll, and offered it, as if with a view to chase away the perturbed look from Hadria’s face. The latter stooped mechanically and took the doll, smiling her thanks, and stroking the child’s fair curls tenderly. Then she recommenced her walk up and down the room, carrying the doll carefully on her arm.
“Take care of dolly,” Martha recommended, and went back to her other toys.
“Yes, Henriette, you and Hubert have made your calculations cleverly. You have advocates only too eloquent in my woman’s temperament. You have succeeded only too well by your fraud, through which I now stand here, with a life in fragments, bound, chafe as I may, to choose between alternative disasters for myself and for all of us. Had you two only acted straightly with me, and kindly allowed me to judge for myself, instead of treacherously insisting on judging for me, this knot of your tying which you naïvely bring me to unravel, would never have wrung the life out of me as it is doing now—nor would it have caused you and Hubert so much virtuous distress.”
Hadria recommenced her restless pacing to and fro.