“I know what you are going to say—or at any rate what you would like to say. It's scarcely decent to talk of such things. But I have n't been brought up in a nunnery. I wish to God I had been. At all events, I am frank. I would loathe it—all that side of it. Could n't we suppress that side? Oh, yes, I am going to speak of it—it has been on my mind for months,” she burst out, as Morland made a quick step towards her.
He did not allow her to continue. With his hand on the arm of her chair, he bent down over her.
“You are talking wild nonsense,” he said; and she flushed red and did not meet his eyes. “When a man marries, he marries in the proper sense of the term, unless he is an outrageous imbecile. There is to be no question of that sort of thing. I thought you knew your world better. I want you—you yourself. Don't you understand that?”
Norma put out her hand to push him away. He seized it in his. She snatched it from him.
“Let me get up,” she said, waving him off. She brushed past him, as she rose.
“We can't go on talking. What I've said has made it impossible. Let us change the subject. How long are you going to stay in town?”
“I'm not going to change the subject,” said Morland, rather brutally. “I'm far too much interested in it. Hang it all, Norma, you do owe me something.”
“What do I owe you? What?” she asked with a sudden flash in her eyes.
“You are a woman of common-sense. I leave you to guess. You admit you have n't treated me properly. You have nothing to complain of as far as I am concerned. Now, have you?”
“How do I know? No. I suppose not, as things go. Once I did try to—to feel more like other women—and to make some amends. I told you that perhaps we were making a mistake in excluding sentiment. If you had chosen, you could have—I don't know—made me care for you, perhaps. But you didn't choose. You treated me as if I were a fool. Very likely I was.”