"The first moment I can. Consequently it doesn't matter particularly what I say to you now or what you think of me afterward. I should just like to give you an idea of what these years have been to me. It may amuse you to know that the pursuit of your brother has been the one guiding passion of my life since I was eighteen. I was in love with him before he left England and I've wanted him from that time on--wanted him with all the strength of my soul and body! Wanted him every living moment of the day and night!... Can you conceive of what that means for a woman? A woman, who can't speak, can't act, can't make the slightest advance, can't give the least glimmering of her feeling?--not only because the world doesn't approve but because her game's all up if the man gets a suspicion that she's after him.... I suppose I knew it was hopeless from the start, though I couldn't bring myself to admit it. At any rate, as soon as the chance came I made up my mind to come over here and just sit around in his way and wait--the only thing a woman can do under the circumstances...."
"I never--I didn't realize quite all that," stammered James. "Though I knew--I guessed about the other.... You mean you deliberately came to America--"
"I wormed my way into a place in your family with that one end in view, if that's what you mean. And I've remained here with that one end in view ever since."
"I had to do something, in the meanwhile--No, that's not true either; that was another means to the same end. Intended to be." She smiled with the same quiet intensity of bitterness that had struck James before.
"But what about you and Aunt Selina? I always thought--"
The smile faded. "Aunt Selina might lie dead at my feet, for all I should care," she answered with another sudden burst of passion. "Oh, no, not quite that. I suppose I like her as well as I can _like_ any one. But that's the way it is, comparatively."
"Yes. I know that feeling," said James meditatively.
"So you see how it is with me. I'm glad, in a way, that it's all up now. Any end--even the worst--is better than waiting--that hopeless, desperate waiting. Yet I never could bring myself to give up till I heard--what I heard yesterday. I've expected it, really, for some time; I've watched, I've seen. Oh, that horrible watching--waiting--listening! That's all over, at least...."