But this meeting upset me strangely. I seemed to have stepped back years in my life. My marriage to Dicky, my life with him, my love for him, seemed in some curious way to belong to some other woman, even the permission to meet him in this way, which I had wrested from Dicky, seemed a need of another. I was again Margaret Spencer, going with my best friend to the restaurant where we had so often dined together.
And yet in some way I felt that things were not the same as they used to be. Jack was the same kindly brother I had always known, and yet there seemed in his manner a tinge of something different. I did not know what. I only knew that I felt very nervous and unstrung.
As I sank into the padded seat and began to remove my gloves I was confronted by a new problem.
My wedding ring, guarded by my engagement solitaire, was upon the third finger of my left hand. Jack would be sure to see them if I kept them on.
I told myself fiercely that I did not wish Jack to know I was married until after we had had this dinner together. With my experience of Dicky's jealousy I had not much hope that Jack and I would ever dine together in this fashion again.
On the other hand, I had a strong aversion to removing my wedding ring even for an hour or two. Besides being a silent falsehood, the act would seem almost an omen of evil. I am not generally superstitious, but something made me dread doing it.
However, I had to choose quickly. I must either take off the rings or tell Jack at once that I was married. I was not brave enough to do the latter.
Taking my silver mesh bag from my muff, I opened it under the table, and, quickly stripping off my gloves, removed my rings, tucked them into a corner of the bag and put gloves and bag back in my muff. Jack, man-like, had noticed nothing.
Now to keep the conversation in my own hands, so that Jack should suspect nothing until we had dined.
The waiter stood at attention with pencil pointed over his order card.
Jack was studying the menu card, and I was studying Jack.