"Sometimes the two colours merge so imperceptibly into one another that it's hard to tell just where the conjunction begins. You want keen sight to do it. But here you're right and I'm wrong; there's no two words about it. It was I who made you stake that five-franc piece; and I'd no right to make you stake buttons if it was against your principles. Your standard's like my mother's. I hope that mine will grow nearer to it. I ask you to forgive me for leading you astray."
"I ought not to have been so weak."
"You had to--when I was there to make you."
She was still; though it is doubtful if she grasped the full meaning his words conveyed. If he had been watching her he would have seen that by degrees something like the suggestion of a smile seem to wrinkle the corners of her lips. When she spoke again it was in half a whisper.
"I'm sorry, I should seem to you to be so silly."
"You don't. You mustn't say it. You seem to me to be the wisest woman I ever met."
"That must be because you've known so few--or else you're laughing. No one who has ever known me has thought me wise. If I were wise I should know what to do with this."
"She motioned towards the money on her lap.
"Throw it into the sea."
"But it isn't mine."