He went back to
his chair.
"Now I have to--I want to--tell you about it," she went on rapidly; "it
has always been in me as long as I can remember, when I was hardly more
than a child sitting alone; and I have always been afraid and ashamed.
The, nicest thing to call it is feeling; but in such an insane degree;
at night it comes over me in waves, like a warm sea. I wanted and
wanted love. But not in the little amounts that satisfied the others--
the men and girls together. I couldn't do any of the small things they
did with safety: this--this feeling would sweep up over me and I'd
think I was going to die.
"All that I had inherited and been told made me sure that I was
horridly immodest; I wouldn't, if it could be helped at all, let anyone
see inside me; I couldn't have men touch me; and whenever I began to
like one I ran. It was disgusting, I was brought up to believe; I
thought there was something wrong with me, that I was a bad girl; and I
struggled, oh, for days on end, to keep it hidden."
It was strange, Lee told himself, that marriage, the birth of her son,
hadn't made her more happily normal; and, as if she had perceived his
thoughts, she added, "Even from William. It would have shocked him,
sickened him, really, more than the rest. He had to dominate me, be
masculine, and I had to be modest, pursued--when I could have killed
him." Her emotion swept her to her feet.
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