"No!" she said for all protest, and he understood.
"Oh, I don't mean that you were always right in it, or always wise; but I can truly say it makes no difference with me except to make you dearer. If I had always had more sense than I had, you would not have to blame yourself for the only wrong or unwise thing you have done, and I am really to blame for that."
She knew that he meant her having taken refuge from his apparent indifference in Dickerson, when she fell below her ideal of herself. This was what she had thought at the time; it was the thought with which she had justified herself then, and she could not deny it now. She loved him for taking her blame away, and she said to strengthen herself for her doom, "Well, it is all over!"
"No," he said, "why is it over? Don't be worse than I was. Let us be reasonable about it! Why shouldn't we talk of it as if we were other people? Do you mean it is all over because you think I must be troubled by what you've told me, or because you can't forgive me for not letting you tell me before?"
"You know which!" she said.
"Well, then, what should you think of some other man if he could care for such a thing, when some other girl had told it him of herself? You would think him very unjust and——"
"But it isn't some other man; it isn't some other girl!"
"No, I'm glad it isn't. But can't we reason about it as if it were?"
"No, we can't. It would be—wicked."
"It would be wicked not to. Do you think you ought to break our engagement because I didn't let you tell me this at first?"