Then suddenly, he turned on Lady Holme and said savagely:
"And you do."
"I?"
"Yes, you. There's lots of fellers that would--"
"Stop!" said Lady Holme, in a voice of sharp decision.
She got up too. She felt that she could not say what she meant to say
sitting down.
"Fritz," she added, "you're a fool. You may be worse. I believe you are.
But one thing's certain--you're a fool. Even in wickedness you're a
blunderer."
"And what are you?" he said.
"I!" she answered, coming a step nearer. "I'm not wicked."
A sudden, strange desire came to her, a desire--as she had slangily
expressed it to Robin Pierce--to "trot out" the white angel whom she had
for so long ignored or even brow-beaten. Was the white angel there? Some
there were who believed so. Robin Pierce, Sir Donald, perhaps others. And
these few believers gave Lady Holme courage. She remembered them, she
relied on them at this moment.
"I'm not wicked," she repeated.
She looked into her husband's face.
"Don't you know that?"
He was silent.
"Perhaps you'd rather I was," she continued. "Don't men prefer it?"
He stared first at her, then at the carpet. A puzzled look came into his
face.
"But I don't care," she said, gathering resolution, and secretly calling,
calling on the hidden woman, yet always with a doubt as to whether she
was there in her place of concealment. "I don't care. I can't change my
nature because of that.
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