didn't know what it meant to be envious of
anyone. He was as different from you as day from night."

Maurice was hurt to the quick. "Now I know your real opinion of me!
Till now you have been considerate enough to hide it. But to-night I
have heard it from your own lips. You despise me!"

"Well, you drove me to say it," she burst out, wounded in her turn. "I
should never have said it of my own accord--never! Oh, how ungenerous
you are! It's not the first time you've goaded me into saying
something, and then turned round on me for it. You seem to enjoy
finding out things you can feel hurt by.--But have I ever complained?
Did I not take you just as you were, and love you--yes, love you! I
knew you couldn't be different--that it wasn't your fault if you were
faint-hearted and ... and--But you?--what do you do? You talk as if you
worship the ground I walk on: but you can't let me alone. You are
always trying to change me--to make me what you think I ought to be."

Her words came in haste, stumbling one over the other, as it became
plain to her how deeply this grievance, expressed now for the first
time, had eaten into her soul. "You've never said to yourself, she's
what she is because it's her nature to be. You want to remake my nature
and correct it. You are always believing something is wrong. You knew
very well, long ago, that the best part of me had belonged to some one
else. You swore it didn't matter. But to-night, because there's
absolutely nothing else you can cavil at, you drag it up again--in
spite of your promises. I have always been frank with you. Do you thank
me for it? No, it's been my old fault of giving everything, when it
would have been wiser to keep something back, or at least to pretend
to. I might have taken a lesson from you, in parsimonious reserve. For
there's a part of you, you couldn't give away--not if you lived with a
person for a hundred years."

Of all she said, the last words stung him most.

"Yes, and why?" he cried. "Ask yourself why I You are unjust, as only a
woman can be. You say there's a part of me you don't know. If that's
true, what does it mean? It means you don't want to know it. You don't
want it even to exist. You want everything to belong to you. You don't
care for me well enough to be interested in that side of my life which
has nothing to do with you. Your love isn't strong enough for that."

"Love!--need we talk about love?" Her face was so unhappy that it
seemed to ha