For I want YOU, and I'd never
believe I had you unless you were free.''
The color was fading from her cheeks. At this it
flushed deeper than before. She must speak. Not to
speak was to lie, was to play the hypocrite. Yet speak
she dared not. At least Stanley Baird was better than
Siddall. Anyhow, who was she, that had been the wife
of Siddall, to be so finicky?
``You don't believe me?'' he said miserably. ``You
think I'll forget myself sometime again?''
``I hope not,'' she said gently. ``I believe not. I
trust you, Stanley.''
And she went into the house. He looked after her,
in admiration of the sweet and pure calm of this quiet
rebuke. She tried to take the same exalted view of it
herself, but she could not fool herself just then with
the familiar ``good woman'' fake. She knew that she
had struck the flag of self-respect. She knew what she
would really have done had he been less delicate, less
in love, and more ``practical.'' And she found a small
and poor consolation in reflecting, ``I wonder how many
women there are who take high ground because it costs
nothing.
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