"It was a clumsy trick--it was a bad bargain!" she declared. "At any
rate I hated it--I hated the idea of your pretending to pass judgment
upon me; of your having come to Baden for the purpose. It was as if Mr.
Wright had been buying a horse and you had undertaken to put me through
my paces!"
"I undertook nothing--I declined to undertake."
"You certainly made a study of me--and I was determined you should get
your lesson wrong. I determined to embarrass, to mislead, to defeat you.
Or rather, I did n't determine; I simply obeyed a natural impulse of
self-defence--the impulse to evade the fierce light of criticism. I
wished to put you in the wrong."
"You did it all very well. You put me admirably in the wrong."
"The only justification for my doing it at all was my doing it well,"
said Angela.
"You were justified then! You must have hated me fiercely."
She turned her back to him and stood looking at the fire again.
"Yes, there are some things that I did that can be accounted for only by
an intense aversion."
She said this so naturally that in spite of a certain theory that was
touched upon a few pages back, Bernard was a good deal bewildered. He
rose from the sofa where he had been lounging and went and stood beside
her a moment.
Pages:
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250