"
"Is it your idea then," she returned, "that I shall keep on meeting
you only to be exposed to fresh humiliation?"
He fixed her a longer time. "Are your instructions from
Mrs. Newsome that you shall, even at the worst, absolutely and
irretrievably break with me?"
"My instructions from Mrs. Newsome are, if you please, my affair.
You know perfectly what your own were, and you can judge for
yourself of what it can do for you to have made what you have of
them. You can perfectly see, at any rate, I'll go so far as to
say, that if I wish not to expose myself I must wish still less to
expose HER." She had already said more than she had quite
expected; but, though she had also pulled up, the colour in her
face showed him he should from one moment to the other have it all.
He now indeed felt the high importance of his having it. "What is
your conduct," she broke out as if to explain--"what is your
conduct but an outrage to women like US? I mean your acting as if
there can be a doubt--as between us and such another--of his duty?"
He thought a moment. It was rather much to deal with at once; not
only the question itself, but the sore abysses it revealed.
"Of course they're totally different kinds of duty."
"And do you pretend that he has any at all--to such another?"
"Do you mean to Madame de Vionnet?" He uttered the name not to
affront her, but yet again to gain time--time that he needed for
taking in something still other and larger than her demand of a
moment before.
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