You represent the thing that we have the right to _hate_ most on earth." "Do _you_ hate me ?" asked Emily, trying to adjust herself mentally to the mad extraordinariness of the situation, and at the same time scarcely understanding why she asked her question.
"Sometimes I do.

When I do not I wonder at myself." The girl paused a second, looked down, as if questioningly, at the carpet, and then, lifting her eyes again, went on in a dragging, half bewildered voice: "When I do _not_, I actually believe it is because we are both--women together.

Before, it was different." The look which Walderhurst had compared to "that of some nice animal in the Zoo" came into Emily's eyes as two honest drops fell from them.
"Would _you_ hurt me ?" she faltered.

"Could _you_ let other people hurt me ?" Hester leaned further forward in her chair, widening upon her such hysterically insistent, terrible young eyes as made her shudder.
"Don't you _see_ ?" she cried.

"_Can't_ you see?
But for _you_ my son would be what Walderhurst is--my son, not yours." "I understand," said Emily.