"I?" cried Zora, aghast.
"Yes, you. You accept the love and adoration of the noblest gentleman that God ever put into the world, and you treat him and talk of him as if he were a creature of no account. If you were worthy of being loved by him, I shouldn't he jealous. But you're not. You've been so wrapped up in your own magnificence that you've not even condescended to notice that he loved you. And even now, when I tell you, you laugh, as if it were preposterous that 'poor Septimus' could ever dare to love you. You drive me mad."
Zora drew herself up angrily. To make allowances for a silly girl's jealousy was one thing; it was another to be accused in this vehement fashion. Conscious of her innocence, she said:
"Your attack on me is entirely unjustifiable, Emmy. I have done nothing."
"That's why," retorted Emmy quickly. "You've done nothing. Men are sacrificing their lives and fortunes for you, and you do nothing."
"Lives and fortunes? What do you mean?"
"I mean what I say," cried Emmy desperately. "Septimus has done everything short of laying down his life for you, and that he would have done if necessary, and you haven't even taken the trouble to see the soul in the man that was capable of it. And now that something has happened which you can't help seeing you come in your grand way to put it all to rights in a minute. You think I've turned him out because he's a good-natured worry like Bobbie, the bob-tailed sheep dog, and you say, 'Poor fellow, see how pitifully he's wagging his tail. It's cruel of you not to let him in.' That's the way you look at Septimus, and I can't stand it and I won't. I love him as I never dreamed a woman could love a man. I could tear myself into little pieces for him bit by bit. And I can't get him. He's as far removed from me as the stars in heaven. You could never understand. I pray every night to God to forgive me, and to work a miracle and bring him to me. But miracles don't happen. He'll never come to me. He can't come to me. While you have been patronizing him, patting him on the head, playing Lady Bountiful to him—as you are doing to the other man who has given up a fortune this very morning just because he loves you—while you've been doing this and despising him—yes, you know you do in your heart, for a simple, good-natured, half-witted creature who amuses himself with crazy inventions, he has done a thing to save you from pain and shame and sorrow—you, not me—because he loved you. And now I love him. I would give all I have in life for the miracle to happen. But it can't. Don't you understand? It can't!"
She stood panting in front of Zora, a passionate woman obeying elemental laws; and when passionate women obey elemental laws they are reckless in speech and overwhelming in assertion and denunciation. Emmy was the first whom Zora had encountered. She was bewildered by the storm of words, and could only say, rather stupidly:
"Why can't it?"
Emmy thew two or three short breaths. The notion had come again. The temptation was irresistible. Zora should know, having brought it on herself. She opened the door.