“Because, well, because I think you are inclined to dramatize your moods,” I said lightly. “I think you are colored by the wish to please whomever you happen to be with. We all are. But I wonder if to-night, when the guests, the dreadful guests who bore you so, return, you will find time so heavy on your hands?”
“For heaven’s sake, don’t laugh at me!” she cried, flaring up with more show of feeling than I had seen.
“Forgive me. I won’t do that again,” I said contritely. “Do you really care what I think?”
“You know I do.”
Her answer left me awkwardly floundering, until suddenly she burst out:
“All you say is true: I do change, I do drift; what I feel is true one moment will be different the next. But, Davy, I realize it! Do you think I want to go on this way? I do what I do because I am restless, just—just to do something. You think I am superficial: I am, horribly so. You think I crave pleasure—excitement: I do. You think I like to play with emotions: I do. All that’s true, and I know it.”
“I wonder if you know what harm you do?” I said, not quite convinced.
“What do you mean?”
“Anne, I sometimes think good women do more harm in this world than bad. They, poor devils, do so little harm: they are so obvious. A moment’s madness, and we throw ourselves violently back from them. To leave them is to forget them. But you—you others—the pain you inflict is given unconsciously.”
“It doesn’t last,” she said.