She felt at that moment as if his lack of self-confidence might ruin their prospects.
"O Claude," she continued in the same almost angry voice, "do pluck up a little belief in your own talent, otherwise how can—"
She pulled herself up sharply.
"I can't help being angry," she continued. "I believe in you so much, and then you speak like this."
Suddenly she burst into tears. Her depression culminated in this breakdown, which surprised her as much as it astonished Claude.
"My nerves have been on edge all day," she said, or, rather, sobbed. "I don't know why."
But even as she spoke she did know why. The strain of secret ambition was beginning to tell upon her. She was perpetually hiding something, was perpetually waiting, desiring, thinking, "How much longer?" And she had not Susan Fleet's wonderful serenity. And then she could not forget Claude's remark, "I can't keep away from the opera." It ought to have pleased her, perhaps, but it had wounded her.
"I'm a fool!" she said, wiping her eyes. "I'm strung up; not myself."
Claude put his arm round her gently.
"I understand that my attitude about my work must often be very aggravating," he said. "But—"