"It is true. Why, I scarcely know. Perhaps it would have been juster to you if I had left you and gone to him."
"I do not understand."
"No matter, then."
"But you loved me once," he exclaimed resolutely. "That is, you told me so."
"Yes, I told you so. And I did love you as I understood loving then. I liked you, that's what it really was, and I liked the things which a marriage with you brought me."
"You mean you married me for my money?"
"I did not know it at the time."
"What do you mean, then?"
Lydia clasped her hands behind her head and leaned back in her seat. "I am trying to be frank with you," she said. "I am trying to make you the only reparation in my power—to let you see me just as I am, just as I see myself. We are what we are. I discovered that long ago."