Think what you must be to her. She has no father and no
mother, she has nobody but you. She told me that. And then--she took
me up to her room and showed me all her pretty things. She was so
happy--and how can I look at her again? She would hate me if she knew;
and I couldn't blame her, poor child. She could never understand that
it was not my fault."
But as she said it her conscience rose in contradiction and told her
that it was her fault. Her fault in the very beginning for drawing him
into an intimacy that his youth and inexperience made dangerous. Her
fault for sacrificing, yes, sacrificing him to that impulse to give
pleasure which had only meant giving pleasure to herself at his
expense. Her fault for endlessly refining on the facts of life, till
she lost all feeling of its simpler and more obvious issues. Kitty had
been right when she told her that she treated men as if they were
disembodied spirits. She had trusted too much to her own subtlety.
That was how all her blunders, had been made. If she had been cold as
well as subtle--but Lucia was capable of passionate indiscreet things
to be followed by torments of her pride. Her pride had only made
matters worse. It was her pride, in the beginning, that had blinded
her. When she had told Kitty that she was not the sort of woman to let
this sort of thing happen with this sort of man, she had summed up her
abiding attitude to one particular possibility.
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