She made a gesture of impatience.
' Tell me all about it from the beginning,' she said; and she heard him in silence.
' And you thought I had done that,' she said. ' Certainly it looked like it, but you ought to have known it was impossible. You did not. Now listen.'
She paused a moment.
' Bertie, for many months you saw me almost daily, and guessed nothing. Of all the men I have known—I have known several—I loved one. You. That was why I always refused you. It was my one decent impulse. It was not easy for me. Nor was it easy for me to see you marry Amelie. But I loved you, and liked her. And in a very dim and vague sort of way I realized that there was such a thing as keeping good, as being clean. Even I realized that. So I kept you by me as long as I could, because your passion for me made you lead a proper life. You did not know that other women even existed while you could see me. Then you wrote that letter, and I knew that I could resist no longer if I continued to see you. So I sent you away. I have done a good many horrible things in my life, but I have done just that one decent one. One thing more. You have never known me do a mean thing. I wonder you dared think it was I who blackmailed you. Now, that is absolutely all. I have no other word to say about myself.'
' I have one,' he said. ' Can you forgive me?'
' I have no idea,' she answered.
She got up and walked once or twice up and down the room, he sitting where he was, not looking at her, but hearing only the frou-frou of her dress. Then he heard the sprit of a lighted match, and a moment afterwards she blew a great cloud of smoke into his face.
' You disgusting, horrible pig!' she said. ' My fingers simply tingle to box your ears. Now, what is to be done?
