"Karen!"
"I do care—more than I did. Can you explain it?"
He was silent, surprised and touched.
"I can't explain it to myself," she said. "I have been trying to and I can't. I should detest you, but I don't. If there is any contempt it is for myself—because I can not feel it for you, perhaps. I think it's that. I don't know. The years we have lived together in these two days must account for my liking you.... Not altogether, because it began in the beginning when you came to Hyacinth Villa.... And it's been so all the time."
"Not all the time. Not in our stateroom."
"When I——"
"Yes! Yes! Isn't it degrading? Isn't it unaccountable—terrible! I'm frightened I tell you. I am afraid that whatever you do—will not—change me."
There was no emotion in her young voice, only an accentless admission of facts with a candour and directness that silenced him.
After a moment she went on, without emphasis, and thoughtfully, as though in self-communion to make things clearer to herself: