“I do not think I can,” Florence said gently.
“I don’t want you,” Mrs. North answered quickly, while her cheeks burned a deeper and deeper red. “It was only a test question.”
“I am very sorry for you,” Florence said again, “very, very. You are so young; and you seem to have no one belonging to you. But there are some things that are impossible, if——”
“Oh, I know,” burst out Mrs. North again; “I know. My God! and this is a Christian country—yes, wait,” she said, for she fancied Florence was going. “I know you are kind and gentle, and you are—good,” she added, almost as an afterthought; “and you and the women like you try very hard to keep your goodness close among yourselves, and never to let one scrap of it touch women like me. Tell me,” she asked—“did you marry the man you loved best in the world?”
“Yes,” Florence answered unwillingly, afraid of being dragged into an argument.
“Then you have never known any temptation to do wrong. Where does the merit of doing right come in?”
“I would rather not discuss it,” Florence said, gently but coldly.
“Oh, let me speak—not for my own sake, for I shall be strong enough to make some sort of life for myself after a time; but for the sake of other women who may be in my position and judged as you judge me. When I was eighteen I was persuaded to marry a man old enough to be my father.”
“But if you didn’t care for him——”
“So many of us think that love is half a myth till our own turn comes. They said I should be happy, and I wanted to be. Of course I wasn’t: human nature is not so easily satisfied. He was rather kind at first. But after a time he grew tired of me. I suppose I wasn’t much of a companion to him. He went abroad and left me alone, again and again. At first my sister was with me; she married and went away. Mrs. Baines came a little while before that——” She stopped, as if unable to go on without some encouragement.