"What's the use of being a humbug about it," said Nancy.
"But you're talking like a revolutionary," I said.
"I may be talking like one, but I'm not one. I once had the makings of
one--of a good one,--a 'proper' one, as the English would say." She
sighed.
"You regret it?" I asked curiously.
"Of course I regret it!" she cried. "What woman worth her salt doesn't
regret it, doesn't want to live, even if she has to suffer for it? And
those people--the revolutionaries, I mean, the rebels--they live, they're
the only ones who do live. The rest of us degenerate in a painless
paralysis we think of as pleasure. Look at me! I'm incapable of
committing a single original act, even though I might conceive one. Well,
there was a time when I should have been equal to anything and wouldn't
have cared a--a damn."