would have made me angry, but not in you. I am only sorry it happened.
Let's pretend it didn't."

"Why," he inquired, puzzled, as he gazed at the face still moist with
its recent tears and now rather cryptic in its expression, "are your
laws of judgment different for me than for other men?"

Marcia shook her head.

"Perhaps just because you are yourself different from other men. Maybe
in the artist there is something of the woman and something of the
child, as well as something of the man. One doesn't grow angry with a
child."

"Oh!" The monosyllable came with an undernote of chagrin. "I'm not
exactly responsible. That's what you mean?"

She did not answer in words, but her eyes as she looked off through the
drizzle with her fingers hanging limply motionless at her sides gave him
the affirmative reply, and he went on in a low voice.

"Of course, that would make you hate me. It must make anyone hate me if
it's true."

There was a moment's silence and he heard her laugh. It was a sound of a
single note and it was neither a laugh of amusement nor of ridicule. If
there was any betrayal of laughing at the expense of someone, the
someone was evidently herself, and Paul was not sure it was a laugh
after all. Possibly it was a single sob or half-sob and half-laugh. But
she went on in a voice flattened by weariness.