And you oughtn't to have tried to make me
proper. And you oughtn't to have driven me to flirt with that horrid
Spaniard, and you oughtn't to have been so horribly cold and severe when
I did. And you oughtn't to have made me take up with Jim, who was the
only one who thought me his equal. I might have been very silly and
capricious; I might have been very vain, but my vanity isn't a bit worse
than your pride; my love of praise and applause in the theatre isn't a
bit more horrid than your fears of what people might think of you or me.
That's gospel truth, isn't it, Clarence? Tell me! Don't look that way
and this--look at ME! I ain't poisonous, Clarence. Why, one of your
cheeks is redder than the other, Clarence; that's the one that's turned
from me. Come," she went on, taking the lapels of his coat between her
hands and half shaking him, half drawing him nearer her bright face.
"Tell me--isn't it true?"
"I was thinking of you just now when I fell asleep, Susy," he said. He
did not know why he said it; he had not intended to tell her, he had
only meant to avoid a direct answer to her question; yet even now he
went on. "And I thought of you when I was out there in the rose garden
waiting to come in here.
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