of people
pain!'"

She was obliged to pause, for tears choked her utterance, and in her
anguish she flung herself athwart a divan and buried her face in a
cushion. The miseries she felt to be around her, miseries of which
she was the cause, overwhelmed her with a warm, continuous stream of
self-pitying tears, and her voice failed as she uttered a little girl's
broken plaint:

"Oh, I'm wretched! Oh, I'm wretched! I can't go on like this: it's
choking me. It's too hard to be misunderstood and to see them all siding
against you because they're stronger. However, when you've got nothing
to reproach yourself with and your conscious is clear, why, then I say,
'I won't have it! I won't have it!'"

In her anger she began rebeling against circumstances, and getting up,
she dried her eyes, and walked about in much agitation.

"I won't have it! They can say what they like, but it's not my fault! Am
I a bad lot, eh? I give away all I've got; I wouldn't crush a fly! It's
they who are bad! Yes, it's they! I never wanted to be horrid to them.
And they came dangling after me, and today they're kicking the bucket
and begging and going to ruin on purpose."

Then she paused in front of Labordette and tapped his shoulders.

"Look here," she said, "you were there all along; now speak the truth:
did I urge them on? Weren't there always a dozen of 'em squabbling who
could invent the dirtiest trick? They used to disgust me, they did! I
did all I knew not to copy them: I was afraid to. Look here, I'll give
you a single instance: they all wanted to marry me! A pretty notion, eh?
Yes, dear boy, I could have been countess or baroness a dozen times
over and more, if I'd consented. Well now, I refused because I was
reasonable. Oh yes, I saved 'em some crimes and other foul acts! They'd
have stolen, murdered, killed father and mother. I had only to say one
word, and I didn't say it. You see what I've got for it today. There's
Daguenet, for instance; I married that chap off! I made a position for
the beggarly fellow after keeping him gratis for weeks! And I met him
yesterday, and he looks the other way! Oh, get along, you swine! I'm
less dirty than you!"

She had begun pacing about again, and now she brought her fist violently
down on a round table.

"By God it isn't fair! Society's all wrong. They come down on the women
when it's the men who want you to do things. Yes, I can tell you this
now: when I used to go with them--see? I didn't enjo