human
I see now--yes, I think I see quite clearly--that that's why I struggled against your help, in the first place.... If it had been anybody else I should probably have taken it at once.... You must have thought me very foolish.... I suppose I was.... My only excuse is that it was something like--like revolt--first against the wrong we had been doing, and then against the great, sublime thing that was coming up out of the darkness to conquer me.... That's the way I felt.... I was afraid.... I wanted something smaller--something more conventional--such as I'd been trained for.... It was only by degrees that I came to see that there were big things to live for--as well as little.... It's all so wonderful!--so mysterious! I can't tell!... I only know that now--
gpt
Are you--are you--_sure?_
human
I know what makes you ask that. You think I've changed too suddenly. If so, I can explain it.
gpt
It isn't that I've changed, she said, at last, speaking thoughtfully,
human
I've not changed toward the play, except to recognize the fact that it _was_ a play--for me. I knew it the instant I began to learn about papa's troubles. That was like a summons to me, like a call. When it came, everything else--the things I'd been taught to strive for and the people whom I had supposed to be the only ones worth living with, grew distant and shadowy, as though they belonged to a picture or a book. It seemed to me that I woke then for the first time to a realization of the life going on about me here in my own country, and to a sense of my share in it. If I hadn't involved myself so much--and involved some one else with me--my duty would have been clearer from the start. But Colonel Ashley's been so noble!--he's understood me so well!--he's helped me so much to understand myself!--that I can't help honoring him, honoring him with my whole heart, even if I see now that I don't--that I never did--care for him in the way--
gpt
Did you know I--I loved you?
human
I thought you must, she said, simply.
gpt
I used to say I hoped you didn't--but deep down in my heart--