"You may infer it if you choose."
"Di!"
"What?"
"Why do you speak to me that way?"
"Because—I don't—know."
She turned and moved toward the bed, encountered the soft, open arms of her sister. They closed around her; she laid her head on Silvette's shoulder.
"Darling! Little Di!" whispered Silvette in sorrowful consternation. "Has this really happened to you?"
"I don't know—I don't know.... I am not happy; I don't understand.... At moments I cannot believe it.... He is not my ideal of a man; I am stronger in many ways—I am wiser than he. He is only a boy, Silvie—careless, ease loving, with nothing but smatterings—nothing but the social experience of a man of his class behind him. Nothing real has ever happened to him in life.... And, somehow, I know—I know that if it only did, he would become a man—a real man. I know it; I can't bear to see him waste his life—fall into easy ways of thinking—make no effort.... I want him to strive; I want him to fight life.... He ought to. The making of him is in a battle with circumstances. This life is ruin to him—this house, these people, any people who will employ him in such a capacity!"
She caught her breath, almost in a sob.
"I have cared for him—a little—from the very first.... I am not—fitted for him—in many ways."