The miseries she felt to be around her, miseries of which
she was the cause, overwhelmed her with a warm, continuous stream of
self-pitying tears, and her voice failed as she uttered a little girl's
broken plaint:
"Oh, I'm wretched! Oh, I'm wretched! I can't go on like this: it's
choking me. It's too hard to be misunderstood and to see them all siding
against you because they're stronger. However, when you've got nothing
to reproach yourself with and your conscious is clear, why, then I say,
'I won't have it! I won't have it!'"
In her anger she began rebeling against circumstances, and getting up,
she dried her eyes, and walked about in much agitation.
"I won't have it! They can say what they like, but it's not my fault! Am
I a bad lot, eh? I give away all I've got; I wouldn't crush a fly! It's
they who are bad! Yes, it's they! I never wanted to be horrid to them.
And they came dangling after me, and today they're kicking the bucket
and begging and going to ruin on purpose."
Then she paused in front of Labordette and tapped his shoulders.
"Look here," she said, "you were there all along; now speak the truth:
did I urge them on? Weren't there always a dozen of 'em squabbling who
could invent the dirtiest trick? They used to disgust me, they did! I
did all I knew not to copy them: I was afraid to.
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