Jaffery looked at her comically. But all he said was: "Go on."
"What can I say?"—she shrugged her shoulders again. "With him I hadn't to be on my best behaviour. I could say anything I liked. You all think it dreadful because I know, like everybody else, how children come into the world, and can make jokes about things like that. Emma used to say it was not ladylike—but he—he did not say so. He laughed. His friends used to laugh. With him and his friends, I could, so to speak, take off my stays"—she threw out her hands largely—"ouf!"
"I see," said Jaffery, frowning at his blades of grass.
"But between liking, figuratively, to take off your corsets in a crowd of Bohemians and wanting to marry the worst of them lies a big difference. You must have got fond of the fellow," he added, in a low voice.
I said nothing. It was their affair. I was responsible to Barbara for her safe deliverance and here she was delivered. My attitude, as you can understand, was solely one of kindly curiosity. Liosha, for some moments, also said nothing. Rather feverishly she pulled off her new white gloves and cast them away; and I noticed an all but imperceptible something—something, for want of a better word, like a ripple—sweep through her, faintly shaking her bosom, infinitesimally ruffling her neck and dying away in a flush on her cheek.
"You loved the fellow," said Jaffery, still picking at the grass-blades.
She bent forward, as she sat; hovered over him for a second or two and clutched his shoulder.
"I didn't," she cried. "I didn't." She almost screamed. "I thought you understood. I would have married anybody who would have taken me out of prison. He was going to take me out of prison to places where I could breathe." She fell back onto her heels and beat her breast with both hands. "I was dying for want of air. I was suffocating."
Her intensity caught him. He lumbered to his feet.
"What are you talking about?"