“Oh!”—Hilda deliberated a moment nursing her slipper—“Really? Well, we can't let that happen.”
“Why not?”
“You have a hardihood! Is no reason plain to you? Don't you see anything?”
Alicia smiled again painfully, as if against a tension of her lips. “I see only one thing that matters—he wants it,” she said.
“And won't be happy till he gets it! Rubbish, my dear! We are an intolerably self-sacrificing sex.” Hilda felt about for pillows, and stretched her length along the bed. “They've taught us well, the men; it's a blood disease now, running everywhere in the female line. You may be sure it was a barbarian princess that hesitated between the lady and the tiger. A civilised one would have introduced the lady and given her a dot, and retired to the nearest convent. Bah! It's a deformity, like the dachshund's legs.”
Alicia looked as if this would be a little troublesome, and not quite worth while, to follow.
“The happiness of his whole life is involved,” she said simply.
“Oh dear yes—the old story! And what about the happiness of yours? Do you imagine it's laudable, admirable, this attitude? Do you see yourself in it with pleasure? Have you got a sacred satisfaction of self-praise?”
Contempt accumulated in Miss Howe's voice, and sat in her eyes. To mark her climax she kicked her slippers over the end of the bed.
“It is idiotic—it's disgusting,” she said.