“I am free, free!” she cried, “my body is my own again, and my soul, and my brain! I am myself again, Gwen Waring, a self-respecting creature, with no man’s brand on me—”
In a few minutes she came back and looked at the golden bands.
“What is the use of lying?” she said, “that mends nothing, and only degrades me. I am not free; whatever happens, whatever could possibly happen, I shall never any more be what I was! Good God! And yet women take marriage as they do a box at the Opera!”
But it was not in the strong nature of her, wholesome what there was of it awake, to lose courage often, and her powers of recuperation were superb. Half an hour after she was striding wildly through the room, she came down as unruffled and more untranslatable than ever, to propose some expedition.
Strange looked at his watch. “Too late for that, suppose we go and see Brydon?”
“Oh, yes, let us go,” she said eagerly.
He looked at her, and knew all about it.
For a minute he felt an overmastering desire to shake her, and make her eyes speak plain English, he was getting tired of their hieroglyphics. He was buttoning her glove at the time and involuntarily he gave the button a cross twist and twitched it out.
“Oh, hang it, is the glove rotten or are my methods? Will it matter?” he asked.
“Oh, not at all, my sleeve will cover it.”