She was quite aware she had nothing whatsoever to give him in exchange, she knew perfectly well she was about to do him a grievous wrong, and yet her whole being was concentrated into one imperative demand to hear what he had to say.
“You may speak,” she said in a hard emotionless voice.
Then he told her simply, with neither condonation nor reservation, the whole truth about his life.
It is all very well to talk glibly about the advantages of calling a spade a spade, but when it comes to giving dozens of spades their unvarnished titles in the presence of one virgin clean woman, and when every fresh spade may be about to dig up the heart you would foster, the matter is no joke.
By the time that Strange had arrived at the end of his unadorned record, his smooth, brick-dust cheeks looked gray and haggard, and his voice sounded tired.
Once during the recital Gwen had lost guard over herself and had let a flash of half-triumphant interest escape from her eyes. It was when he had said—“Thank Heaven! I never loved one of these women, that is, taking love in its all-round, large sense.”
When he had finished he stood up and looked at her, waiting.
She had herself still in her power, she felt, with a wild leap of her spirit, she could yet ward off her fate and his; “his,” she thought with a wave of soft unaccustomed pity. She had nothing to give this man, nothing, not even the germs of a possible something—something called Love.
She laughed aloud and looked in his face when the empty word stirred her brain, then she lowered her eyes and turned all her thoughts in on herself, moving a small pearl ring up and down her finger with a swift rhythmic movement.—This man would take her for mere hope—hope that had no foundation in fact,—it was a mean exchange, nothing for everything,—mean and unjust; for the minute she was hideous to herself, with her own whole life a protest against the injustice of others.
She looked at him again, and a horrible power seemed to drag and bind her to him, she turned her eyes away angrily and made a little involuntary sound of trouble.