human
Miss Carbury, she said with that low, rich voice which in old days had charmed Paul almost as much as her loveliness,
gpt
I need not tell you how interested I am in seeing you. May I not ask you to lay aside your veil, so that we may look at each other fairly? Hetta, dumbfounded, not knowing how to speak a word, stood gazing at the woman when she had removed her veil. She had had no personal description of Mrs. Hurtle, but had expected something very different from this! She had thought that the woman would be coarse and big, with fine eyes and a bright colour. As it was they were both of the same complexion, both dark, with hair nearly black, with eyes of the same colour. Hetta thought of all that at the moment,--but acknowledged to herself that she had no pretension to beauty such as that which this woman owned.
human
And so you have come to see me, said Mrs. Hurtle.
gpt
Sit down so that I may look at you. I am glad that you have come to see me, Miss Carbury.
human
Sit down so that I may look at you.
gpt
I am glad at any rate that you are not angry.
human
Why should I be angry? Had the idea been distasteful to me I should have declined. I know not why, but it is a sort of pleasure to me to see you. It is a poor time we women have,--is it not,--in becoming playthings to men? So this Lothario that was once mine, is behaving badly to you also. Is it so? He is no longer mine, and you may ask me freely for aid, if there be any that I can give you. If he were an American I should say that he had behaved badly to me;--but as he is an Englishman perhaps it is different. Now tell me;--what can I do, or what can I say?
gpt
He told me that you could tell me the truth.
human
What truth? I will certainly tell you nothing that is not true. You have quarrelled with him too. Is it not so?
gpt
Certainly I have quarrelled with him.
human
I am not curious;--but perhaps you had better tell me of that. I know him so well that I can guess that he should give offence. He can be full of youthful ardour one day, and cautious as old age itself the next. But I do not suppose that there has been need for such caution with you. What is it, Miss Carbury?
gpt
Mrs. Hurtle, she said,
human
I had never heard your name when he first asked me to be his wife.
gpt
I dare say not. Why should he have told you anything of me?
human
Because,--oh, because--. Surely he ought, if it is true that he had once promised to marry you.
gpt
That certainly is true.
human
And you were here, and I knew nothing of it. Of course I should have been very different to him had I known that,--that,--that--
gpt
That there was such a woman as Winifrid Hurtle interfering with him. Then you heard it by chance, and you were offended. Was it not so?
human
And now he tells me that I have been unjust to him and he bids me ask you. I have not been unjust.
gpt
I am not so sure of that. Shall I tell you what I think? I think that he has been unjust to me, and that therefore your injustice to him is no more than his due. I cannot plead for him, Miss Carbury. To me he has been the last and worst of a long series of, I think, undeserved misfortune. But whether you will avenge my wrongs must be for you to decide.
human
Why did he go with you to Lowestoft?
gpt
Because I asked him,--and because, like many men, he cannot be ill-natured although he can be cruel. He would have given a hand not to have gone, but he could not say me nay. As you have come here, Miss Carbury, you may as well know the truth. He did love me, but he had been talked out of his love by my enemies and his own friends long before he had ever seen you. I am almost ashamed to tell you my own part of the story, and yet I know not why I should be ashamed. I followed him here to England--because I loved him. I came after him, as perhaps a woman should not do, because I was true of heart. He had told me that he did not want me;--but I wanted to be wanted, and I hoped that I might lure him back to his troth. I have utterly failed, and I must return to my own country,--I will not say a broken-hearted woman, for I will not admit of such a condition,--but a creature with a broken spirit. He has misused me foully, and I have simply forgiven him; not because I am a Christian, but because I am not strong enough to punish one that I still love. I could not put a dagger into him,--or I would; or a bullet,--or I would. He has reduced me to a nothing by his falseness, and yet I cannot injure him! I, who have sworn to myself that no man should ever lay a finger on me in scorn without feeling my wrath in return, I cannot punish him. But if you choose to do so it is not for me to set you against such an act of justice.
human
You have been very kind,
gpt
It is well that there should be some kindness where there has been so much that is unkind. Forgive me, Miss Carbury, if I speak plainly to you. Of course you will go back to him. Of course you will be his wife. You have told me that you love him dearly, as plainly as I have told you the same story of myself. Your coming here would of itself have declared it, even if I did not see your satisfaction at my account of his treachery to me.
human
Oh, Mrs. Hurtle, do not say that of me!
gpt
But it is true, and I do not in the least quarrel with you on that account. He has preferred you to me, and as far as I am concerned there is an end of it. You are a girl, whereas I am a woman,--and he likes your youth. I have undergone the cruel roughness of the world, which has not as yet touched you; and therefore you are softer to the touch. I do not know that you are very superior in other attractions; but that has sufficed, and you are the victor. I am strong enough to acknowledge that I have nothing to forgive in you;--and am weak enough to forgive all his treachery. Hetta was now holding the woman by the hand, and was weeping, she knew not why.
human
I am so glad to have seen you, continued Mrs. Hurtle,