"I should like to think he had loved a respectable woman!" she cried, wounded anew by this lightness, unable to hold back things she miserably knew she would be sorry she had not held back. "And if he had loved that kind of a woman—did love her—I should like to think he had too much respect for his wife to ask her to meet such a person!"
"Ruth Holland is not a woman to speak like that about, Amy," he said with unconcealed anger.
"She's not a decent woman! She's not a respectable woman! She's a bad woman! She's a low woman!"
She could not hold it back. She knew she looked unlovely, knew she was saying things that would not make her loved. She could not help it. Deane turned away from her. After a minute he got a little control of himself and instead of the hot things that had flashed up, said coldly: "I don't think you know what you're talking about."
"Of course I couldn't hope to know as much as she does," she jeered. "However," she went on, with more of a semblance of dignity, "I do know a few things. I know that society cannot countenance a woman who did what that woman did. I know that if a woman is going to selfishly take her own happiness with no thought of others she must expect to find herself outside the lives of decent people. Society must protect itself against such persons as she. I know that much—fortunately."
Her words fortified her. She, certainly, was in the right. She felt that she had behind her all those women of that afternoon. Did any of them receive Ruth Holland? Did they not all see that society must close in against the individual who defied it? She felt supported.
For the minute he stood there looking at her—so absolutely unyielding, so satisfied in her conclusions,—those same things about society and the individual that he had heard from the rest of them; like the rest of them so satisfied with the law she had laid down—law justifying hardness of heart and closing in against the sorrow of a particular human life; from Amy now that same look, those same words. For a little time he did not speak. "I'm awfully sorry, Amy," was all he said then.
He stood there in miserable embarrassment. He always kissed her good-by.
She saw his hesitancy and turned to the other room. "Hadn't you better hurry?" she laughed. "You have so many calls to make—and some of them so important!"