She said the last sentence with a sort of childish defiance.
“Wait,” said Artois. “Now I begin to understand.”
“What?”
“All those hours spent in your room. Your mother thought you were reading.”
“No,” she said, still rather defiantly; “I’ve been writing that, and other things—about the sea.”
“How? In prose?”
“No. That’s the worst of it, I suppose.”
And again the faint wave of color went over her face to her neck.
“Do you really feel so criminal? Then what ought I to feel?”
“You? Now that is really cruel!” she cried, getting up quickly, almost as if she meant to hurry away.