Angelica turned her face to the wall. That was the very worst of it. She hadn’t really trusted Vincent at all. She had simply followed an instinct of which she understood nothing. She had been dazzled by his words, been deluded through compassion, through recklessness, through desire, into throwing herself away upon a man who cared nothing for her, who had no affection, no human kindness. He didn’t care what happened to her. If she had been willing to stay with him a little longer, he would have been willing to "love" her a little longer; but when she had decided to leave him, he offered no resistance. He would quite easily forget her, she knew. Useless to tell herself that the conventional code of morality meant nothing to her. It did! She had fancied herself superior to all that, but that was because she hadn’t known or imagined what such a surrender meant. Just to run into his arms, without ceremony, without any promise, any covenant, without regard for any other human creature, reckless of her own future, flinging away her pride, her freedom, her decency. That wasn’t beautiful. That wasn’t love. What in God’s name was it? She had not even happy memories. It was shame to remember her past joy. She loathed herself for her past ecstasy. A perfect terror of her own infamy swept over her. "No!" she cried. "I can’t stand it! Mommer, it’s too awful! You don’t know how awful! You don’t know what I did!" "Why don’t you tell me, deary?" "I can’t! I don’t know how. I’ll try." She sat up in bed and caught her mother’s hand. "The worst is the way I treated Eddie. He was so good to me! He asked me to marry him, and I said I would; and then, the very day he left, I went away--with his own brother!" "Oh, Angie!" cried her mother, in horror. "Oh, mommer, if you knew Eddie, you’d see what an awful thing I’ve done! He’s such a _good_ man, and so--kind of noble, and all that! I don’t know how he’ll ever stand it. He trusted me." "But what ever made you do such a thing, Angelica? Are you so terrible fond of this other one?" "No--not now. No--that’s what I can’t explain. I don’t know why I did. I--I just seemed to forget everything. I--just thought--I loved him." "And you don’t? You love the other one--the good one?" Angelica began to weep. "No," she said. "That’s the worst. I don’t love either of ’em. What’s the matter with me, do you suppose? I don’t seem to have any heart!" She struggled painfully to get her thought into words. "I hate Vincent, and I like Eddie, a lot; but love--I’ve never felt it at all, mommer, for any one," she sobbed. "Not that love they have in books. It makes me feel dreadful. If I loved Vincent, I wouldn’t feel so mean and low and bad. It would be--sort of splendid; but this! Mommer!" "Well, deary?" "Maybe there’s no such a thing." "No such a thing as what?" "As love."