"Well, you see it makes a lot of difference in my position from the worldly point of view."
"And you think I care about that! I knew you did. I knew exactly what you were thinking on the terrace!"
There was a wounded sound in her voice. Then she added, with a sort of terribly bitter quietness:
"But—what else could you, or anyone, think?"
"Ruby!" he exclaimed.
He tried to seize her hand, but she would not let him.
"No, Nigel! don't touch me now. I—I shall hate you if you touch me now."
Her face was distorted with passion, and the tears stood in her eyes.
"I don't blame you a bit," she said. "I should be a fool to expect anyone, even you, to believe in me after all that—all that has happened. But—it is hard, sometimes it is frightfully hard, to bear all this disbelief that one can have any good in one."
She turned hurriedly away.