“Let me play mother,” quoth she gently, “keep to a whisper, my dear. I know something about trouble.”
So with the camp fires about them, and with the sound of trumpets blown madly and at random in the town below, these two women opened their hearts to one another. Denise told Marpasse how Gaillard had served her, how she had seen him that night, how she loathed and feared the man, and Marpasse understood. She was wise, poor wench, in the ways of the world, and Denise’s tale might have been her own in measure. But Marpasse had not been wholly hardened and brutalised by the life she had led. She had the instinct of generosity left in her, and she could be superlatively honest when she was not rebuffed by sneers.
Marpasse had an honest fit that night. She told Denise the truth about herself, and knew by Denise’s silence and a certain stiffening of her body that the truth had roused a counter-shock of repulsion. Denise’s instincts recoiled from Marpasse. The woman was sensitive to the change. She drew aside from Denise, and sat with her knees drawn up, and her arms clasped over them.
“You are like the rest of the world, sister,” she said, with a laugh on edge with bitterness; “even when we try to be honest, good people spit on us, and draw aside their clothes.”
Denise stretched out a hand and touched Marpasse’s shoulder.
“It is not that,” she said.
“Bah, I am used to it! We are never forgiven, and I want no forgiveness. Fawn and cringe on the godly? To hell with their smug faces! But after all, you and I, my dear——”
She stopped, and began to pull at the grass with her hands. Denise’s eyes were shining.
“God forgive us both, Marpasse. Sometimes fate is stronger than we are. We are sisters, in that.”
Marpasse did not move. It was Denise now who played the comforter. Marpasse did not repel her a second time.