He gave her too little; he seemed to ask too much.
The first interview--in a private sitting-room at the hotel where
they were all staying--lasted about half an hour; it wrought a
change in Irene for which she had not at all prepared herself,
though the doubts and misgivings which had of late beset her pointed
darkly to such a revulsion of feeling. She had not understood; she
could not understand, until enlightened by the very experience.
Alone once more, she sat down all tremulous; pallid as if she had
suffered a shock of fright. An indescribable sense of immodesty
troubled her nerves: she seemed to have lost all self-respect: the
thought of going forth again, of facing her father and brother, was
scarcely to be borne. This acute distress presently gave way to a
dull pain, a sinking at the heart. She felt miserably alone. She
longed for a friend of her own sex, not necessarily to speak of what
she was going through, but for the moral support of a safe
companionship. Never had she known such a feeling of isolation, and
of over-great responsibility.
A few tears relieved her. Irene was not prone to weeping; only a
great crisis of her fate would have brought her to this extremity.
It was over in a quarter of an hour--or seemed so. She had
recovered command of her nerves, had subdued the excess of emotion.
As for what had happened, that was driven into the background of her
mind, to await examination at leisure.
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