Is it me you're angry with

The reproach trembled on her lip--but sheremembered her own part in the wretched business, and theimpossibility of avowing it to Strefford, and of revealing tohim that Nick had left her for that very reason. She was notafraid that the discovery would diminish her in Strefford'seyes: he was untroubled by moral problems, and would laugh awayher avowal, with a sneer at Nick in his new part of moralist. 　　But that was just what she could not bear: that anyone should cast a doubt on the genuineness of Nick's standards, or shouldknow how far below them she had fallen. 　　She remained silent, and Strefford, after a moment, drew hergently down to the seat beside him. "Susy, upon my soul I don'tknow what you're driving at. Is it me you're angry with-oryourself? And what's it all about! Are you disgusted because Ilet the villa to a couple who weren't married! But, hang it,they're the kind that pay the highest price and I had to earn myliving somehow! One doesn't run across a bridal pair everyday ...."She lifted her eyes to his puzzled incredulous face. PoorStreff! No, it was not with him that she was angry. Why shouldshe be? Even that ill-advised disclosure had told her nothingshe had not already known about him. It had simply revealed toher once more the real point of view of the people he and shelived among, had shown her that, in spite of the superficialdifference, he felt as they felt, judged as they judged, wasblind as they were-and as she would be expected to be, shouldshe once again become one of them. What was the use of beingplaced by fortune above such shifts and compromises, if in one'sheart one still condoned them? And she would have to--she wouldcatch the general note, grow blunted as those other people wereblunted, and gradually come to wonder at her own revolt, asStrefford now honestly wondered at it. She felt as though shewere on the point of losing some new-found treasure, a treasureprecious only to herself, but beside which all he offered herwas nothing, the triumph of her wounded pride nothing, thesecurity of her future nothing. 　　"What is it, Susy?" he asked, with the same puzzled gentleness. 　　Ah, the loneliness of never being able to make him understand! 　　She had felt lonely enough when the flaming sword of Nick'sindignation had shut her out from their Paradise; but there hadbeen a cruel bliss in the pain. Nick had not opened her eyes tonew truths, but had waked in her again something which had lainunconscious under years of accumulated indifference. And thatre-awakened sense had never left her since, and had somehow kepther from utter loneliness because it was a secret shared withNick, a gift she owed to Nick, and which, in leaving her, hecould not take from her. It was almost, she suddenly felt, asif he had left her with a child.