human
Only the man is sure to get the best of it, she added, bitterly.
gpt
He loses so little. It is a game where the odds are all on one side, and the conclusion foregone.
human
What is it? Why are you by yourself?
gpt
Oh, our party split up, long ago, into cliques, and we all became so select, that, at last, we reduced each clique to one member. Behold the very acme of selectness!
human
This sounds like evasion,
gpt
And if it were, what right have you to try to force me to tell what I do not volunteer?
human
True, said her sister;
gpt
I beg your pardon.
human
I will leave you to yourselves,
gpt
That is almost like our old vision in the caves, Algitha; mist and distant lands--it was a false prophecy. You were talking about me when I came up, were you not?
human
Did you hear?
gpt
No, but I feel sure of it.
human
Well, I confess it, said Algitha.
gpt
We are both very uneasy about you.
human
If one never did anything all one's life to make one's friends uneasy, I wonder if one would have any fun.
gpt
Women have to pay so high,
human
So much the worse, but there is such a thing as false economy.
gpt
But seriously, Hadria, if one may speak frankly, I can't see that the game is worth the candle. You have tested your power sufficiently. What more do you want? Claude Moreton is too nice and too good a man to trifle with. And poor Joseph Fleming! That is to me beyond everything.
human
I never dreamt that he--I--I never tried, never thought for a moment----
gpt
Ah! that is just the danger, Hadria. Your actions entail unintended consequences. As Miss Du Prel says, 'It is always the good men whom one wounds; the others wound us.' Hadria was silent.
human
And Claude Moreton, continued Algitha presently.
gpt
He is far too deeply interested in you, far too absorbed in what you say and do. I have watched him. It is cruel.
human
Has _he_ never cruelly injured a woman? Has _he_ not at least given moral support to the hideous indignities that all womanhood has to endure at men's hands? At best one can make a man suffer. But men also humiliate us, degrade us, jeer at, ridicule the miseries that they and their society entail upon us. Yet for sooth, they must be spared the discomfort of becoming a little infatuated with a woman for a time--a short time, at worst! Their feelings must be considered so tenderly!
gpt
But what good do you do by your present conduct?
human
I am not trying to do good. I am merely refusing to obey these rules for our guidance, which are obviously drawn up to safeguard man's property and privilege. Whenever I can find a man-made precept, that will I carefully disobey; whenever the ruling powers seek to guide me through my conscience, there shall they fail!
gpt
You forget that in playing with the feelings of others you are placing yourself in danger, Hadria. How can you be sure that you won't yourself fall desperately in love with one of your intended victims?
human
I wish to heaven I only could! she exclaimed.
gpt
I would give my right hand to be in the sway of a complete undoubting, unquestioning passion that would make all suffering and all life seem worth while; some emotion to take the place of my lost art, some full and satisfying sense of union with a human soul to rescue one from the ghastly solitude of life. But I am raving like a girl. I am crying for the moon.
human
Ah, take care, take care, Hadria; that is a mood in which one may mistake any twopenny-halfpenny little luminary for the impossible moon.
gpt
I think I should be almost ready to bless the beautiful illusion,
human
My dear lady, you have completely misunderstood me.