In her silence there was damnation for
them both. But she meant to speak.
"I have been a fool. I see that now. But I think I have been
suspecting it for some time--nearly all this summer."
He could hear by the sound of her voice that while she was speaking
she was thinking deeply. Like him, she was in search of absolute
truth.
"It is only this summer that I have begun to see why people--you--have
often smiled at my enthusiasms. No wonder you smiled! No wonder you
laughed at me secretly!"
Her voice was hard and bitter.
"I never laughed at you, never--either secretly or openly!" he said,
with a heat almost of anger.
"Oh yes, you did, as a person who can see clearly might laugh at a
short-sighted person tumbling over all the little obstacles on a road.
I was always tumbling over things--always--and you must always have
been laughing. I have been a fool. Instead of growing up, my heart has
remained a child--till now. That's what it is. Children who have been
kindly treated think the world is all kindness.
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