her

dead face. ‘To live so as to regret nothing!’ It must have been a young man who said that. A man, anyway. Remorse as man’s prerogative! Nature. It was in Nature that girls hid themselves and covered their heads. Nature has no remorse. Nature has no ‘substance’ behind her thought. Thoughts without ‘substance.’ One⁠ ⁠… two⁠ ⁠… three⁠ ⁠… Three drops of acid in a grooved, waxed pattern? The girl smiled into her mother’s mirror. Thoughts without ‘substance.’ Butterfly-wings quivering. Unconscious signals. Little fool: The old man meant nothing at all. It was all your⁠—”