"I don't know how to tell him," she wailed. "There was something Pagan in me and I didn't know it. I thought I was in hand, but I wasn't! I started low, and I wanted to climb up--and up--and up! Oh, Charley, look!" She leaned toward him across the table, pleading. "I was just ambitions, just like any American girl--like every woman in the world, I suppose. If I sold out, I didn't know it. I didn't _want_ you to care for me. But you did, you do! I kept away from you, so that you wouldn't, so that we _couldn't_--so that I'd always feel that _you_, at least--"
"I don't care where it ends, that's the worst of it; I don't care! One thing only is to my credit. I've kept my bargain--with him. I've paid the price I agreed to give. There is no scandal about me--yet. And there might have been!"
"But some way, when he sent me out for you, talked to me as he did, treated me like a piece of merchandise as he did--for once I wavered. For once, Charley, it seemed to me that I was released from all obligations to him, that I was where I ought to have a chance for my own hand, to see life as life could be for itself, to have the love that's life for a woman. I wanted to be wooed and won by some one who loved me, just as any woman wants to be, Charley, some time! And I wasn't--I wasn't.... It was horrible.... It was horrible.... I wanted to give love for love. I wanted what I couldn't get, and saw it was too late to get it fair. And when I saw that you--that even you'd sell out for _me_--why, where was the good, clean thing left in all the world? I couldn't tell. I didn't know what to do. I don't know now. But you put these papers before me now, and you expect me to shed tears over them. I can't. I don't care. The worst was over for me before now. It came when I knew you'd love me if I'd raise a finger to you. Why didn't you make me love you first--long ago? _Then_ all would have come right. Back there--at first--"
"They'll say that when your husband lost his fortune he lost his wife. Yes--" he nodded. "They'll say that and believe it! That isn't true!"
"No, that isn't true. I was done with him the moment he set this errand for me. No woman can love a man who will do that. But I was done with him--from the first I never loved him, I never did--I only married him! I sold out--what I had to sell, myself, my fitness for a place like this. That was what I called success! I wanted to be some one in the world! Look at me now--"