Page:The Bet and Other Stories.djvu/171

Rh some clear purpose. She still had a mind to struggle, but instantly she waved her hand impotently, realising the strength and the determination of the foe. To fight him power and strength were necessary, but her birth, upbringing and life had given her nothing on which to lean.

"You're immoral, you're horrible," she tormented herself for her weakness. "You're a nice sort, you are!"

So indignant was her insulted modesty at this weakness that she called herself all the bad names that she knew and she related to herself many insulting, degrading truths. Thus she told herself that she never was moral, and she had not fallen before only because there was no pretext, that her day-long struggle had been nothing but a game and a comedy. . ..

"Let us admit that I struggled," she thought, "but what kind of a fight was it? Even prostitutes struggle before they sell themselves, and still they do sell themselves. It's a pretty sort of fight. Like milk, turns in a day." She realised that it was not love that drew her from her home nor Ilyin's personality, but the sensations which await her. . . . A little week-end type like the rest of them.

"When the young bird's mother was killed," a hoarse tenor finished singing.

If I am going, it's time, thought Sophia Pietrovna. Her heart began to beat with a frightful force.