I've been ashamed of it.

It's--it's the alcohol in it that I like, isn't it?
I never thought of it in that way till now." Kathleen, on her knees by the bedside, was crying silently.

The girl slipped from her arms, turned partly over, and lying on her back, stared upward through the darkness.
So this was the secret reason that, unsuspected, had long been stirring her to instinctive uneasiness, which had made her half ashamed, half impatient with this silly habit which already inconvenienced her.

Yet even now she could not feel any real alarm; she could not understand that the fangs of a habit can poison when plucked out.

Of course there was now only one thing to do--keep aloof from everything.