And just three weeks ago now, helping to tie up her
roses, he had touched her, and she had known. But even then, until
the night of Courtier's accident, she had not dared to realize. More
concerned now for him than for herself, she asked herself a thousand
times if she had been to blame. She had let him grow fond of her, a
woman out of court, a dead woman! An unpardonable sin! Yet surely that
depended on what she was prepared to give! And she was frankly ready to
give everything, and ask for nothing. He knew her position, he had told
her that he knew. In her love for him she gloried, would continue
to glory; would suffer for it without regret. Miltoun was right in
believing that newspaper gossip was incapable of hurting her, though her
reasons for being so impervious were not what he supposed. She was not,
like him, secured from pain because such insinuations about the private
affairs of others were mean and vulgar and beneath notice; it had not
as yet occurred to her to look at the matter in so lofty and general
a light; she simply was not hurt, because she was already so deeply
Miltoun's property in spirit, that she was almost glad that they should
assign him all the rest of her. But for Miltoun's sake she was disturbed
to the soul. She had tarnished his shield in the eyes of men; and
(for she was oddly practical, and saw things in very clear proportion)
perhaps put back his career, who knew how many years!
She sat down to drink her tea.
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