She shivered slightly. She was dazed. Hatred for the moment, hatred for self and the world, for him, imperiously pinning her to the old sorrow; his failure to make a child of her, as a lover of less integrity might have done—it was all a sickening botch, about Wordling's pretty taunting face. She had not the strength of faculty to tear down and build again the better way.
"You were telling me that he was your work—of his face and all,"
Bedient whispered.
"Oh, yes…. Oh, yes, and you went away——"
"Yes," he said strangely.
"I must have been dreaming…. It hurt me so—he hurt me so. I remember——"
And now a cold gray light dawned in her brain, and the old story cleared—the old worn grooves were easily followed.
"Yes."
"But I—perhaps—I was inexorable." There was something eerie in that touch which held her for an instant.
"But you started to tell me more about him, I'm sure, at first,"
Bedient said. The idea in his brain needed this.
"I helped him in his studies," she answered angrily. There was something morbid to her in Bedient's intensity. "I helped him in the world, or friends of mine did. Yes, I made his way among men until he could stand alone. And he did, quickly. He was bright. Even his refinements of dress and manner and English—I undertook at the beginning."