you come here at this time?" she asked.

"Your mother sent for me in pressing terms, and I was very glad to have
an opportunity to speak to you."

"Have you come to help me, or to persecute me?"

"I have as little power to do one as I have desire to do the other.
I came in great part to ask you a question. First, your decision is
irrevocable?"

Christina's two hands had been hanging clasped in front of her; she
separated them and flung them apart by an admirable gesture.

"Would you have done this if you had not seen Miss Garland?"

She looked at him with quickened attention; then suddenly, "This is
interesting!" she cried. "Let us have it out." And she flung herself
into a chair and pointed to another.

"You don't answer my question," Rowland said.

"You have no right, that I know of, to ask it. But it 's a very clever
one; so clever that it deserves an answer. Very likely I would not."

"Last night, when I said that to myself, I was extremely angry," Rowland
rejoined.

"Oh, dear, and you are not angry now?"

"I am less angry."

"How very stupid! But you can say something at least."

"If I were to say what is uppermost in my mind, I would say that, face
to face with you, it is never possible to condemn you."

"Perche?"

"You know, yourself! But I can at least say now what I felt last night.
It seemed to me that you had consciously, cruelly dealt a blow at that
poor girl. Do you understand?"

"Wait a moment!" And with her eyes fixed on him, she inclined her head
on one side, meditatively. Then a cold, brilliant smile covered
her face, and she made a gesture of negation. "I see your train of
reasoning, but it 's quite wrong. I meant no harm to Miss Garland; I
should be extremely sorry to make her suffer. Tell me you believe that."

This was said with ineffable candor. Rowland heard himself answering, "I
believe it!"

"And yet, in a sense, your supposition was true," Christina continued.
"I conceived, as I told you, a great admiration for Miss Garland, and I
frankly confess I was jealous of her. What I envied her was simply
her character! I said to myself, 'She, in my place, would n't marry
Casamassima.' I could not help saying it, and I said it so often that I
found a kind of inspiration in it. I hated the idea of being worse than
she--of doing something that she would n't do. I might be bad by nature,
but I need n't be by volition. The end of it all was that I found it
impossible not to tell the p