human
Yvonne, she said wistfully,
gpt
Yes, Dear, I'll write today. I don't think it is very wicked to adopt a pretense that enables me to visit you without--without setting idle tongues wagging.
human
Without causing a village scandal, you might well have said, came the bitter retort.
gpt
Very well, Yvonne, I will not say such things, for the girl winced at the unerring judgment that supplied the words that had nearly escaped her.
human
Now let us talk of other matters. Tell me something of yourself. Where and how do you live? Why are you wearing that costume? Do you dress like that habitually? And how wonderfully it becomes you! Talk, Dear, and I'll listen, and if I fall asleep when you are talking don't imagine that I am heedless and inattentive; for I have been brought nearer happiness in this hour than I would have believed possible yesterday. Do you realize that the wreck was directly due to my folly? The captain wished to put into the Aven estuary when the storm became very bad; but I refused to permit it. Wallie--that is Mr. Carmac--always yielded to my whims, and he imagined I preferred Lorient to Pont Aven. I didn't. I knew that your father lived here. His art proved more enduring than a woman's faith. It has made him famous; though I had the cruelty, the impertinence, to tell him once that he would never emerge from the ruck. I never heard of you. For some reason I thought you had died in infancy. Yvonne, Heaven forgive me, I may even have wished it! But you see now why I wanted to avoid Pont Aven. As though any of God's creatures can resist when He points the way!