"I want to tell
you--something--about myself."
"Something I really don't know?" asked Green, his dark face flashing
to a smile.
There was no answering smile on Juliet's face. "Yes, something you don't
know," she said soberly. "It's just this. I have much more in common with
Mrs. Fielding than you have any idea of. I have lived for pleasure
practically all my life. I have scrambled for happiness with the rest of
the world, and I haven't found it. It's only just lately that I've
realized why. I read a book called The Valley of Dry Bones. Do you know
it? But of course you do. It is by Dene Strange. I hate the man--if it is
a man. And I hate his work--the bitter cynicism of it, the merciless
exposure of humanity at its lowest and meanest. I don't know what his
ideals are--if he has any. I think he is probably very wicked, but
detestably--oh, damnably--clever. I burnt the book I hated it so. But I
felt--afterwards--as if I had been burnt, seared by hot
irons--ashamed--most cruelly ashamed." Juliet's voice sank almost to a
whisper. "Because--life really is like that--one vast structure of
selfishness--and in many ways I have helped to make it so.
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