She walked away, and came back, a little pale and grave. She sat down on the arm of a chair and looked up at him.
“I see. You are as proud as ever.”
That hurt him. His face changed.
“You can’t really think that,” he said, with difficulty.
“Yes, yes, you are!” she said, wildly, covering her eyes a moment with her hands. “It’s just the same as it was in the spring—only different—I told you then—”
“That I was a bully and a cad!”
Her hands dropped sharply.
“I didn’t!” she protested. But she coloured brightly as she spoke, remembering certain remarks of Nora’s. “I thought—yes I did think—you cared too much about being rich—and a great swell—and all that. But so did I!” She sprang up. “What right had I to talk? When I think how I patronised and looked down upon everybody!”
“You!” his tone was pure scorn. “You couldn’t do such a thing if you tried for a week of Sundays.”
“Oh, couldn’t I? I did. Oxford seemed to me just a dear, stupid old place—out of the world,—a kind of museum—where nobody mattered. Silly, wasn’t it?—childish?” She drew back her head fiercely, as though she defied him to excuse her. “I was just amusing myself with it—and with Otto—and with you. And that night, at Magdalen, all the time I was dancing with Otto, I was aiming—abominably—at you! I wanted to provoke you—to pay you back—oh, not for Otto’s sake—not at all!—but just because—I had asked you something—and you had refused. That was what stung me so. And do you suppose I should have cared twopence, unless—”