“You loved him?”
“Certainly not. He always had too high an opinion of himself, and I used to enjoy taking it out of him—and making it up to him afterwards, too. I used to enjoy that as well. Sometimes, of course, he found the process too unbearable; and in one of his fits of anger at me, just after he left college, he went and blundered into this marriage with Pauline. She, you see, took him at his own valuation. His marriage seemed to put an end to everything between us—”
“You surprise me.”
Christine laughed. “Ah, I was younger then.”
“You kept on seeing him?”
“Naturally we met now and then. Sometimes he used to tell me how I was the only woman—”
“That is your idea of putting an end to everything?”
“Oh, if one took seriously all the men who say that—I did not think much about Lee’s feelings for me, until my engagement was announced. Then it appeared that the notion of my marrying some one else was intolerable to him.”
“A high order of affection,” exclaimed Riatt. “He was content enough until there seemed some chance of your being happy.”
“Perhaps he did not consider that life with you would promise absolute happiness, Max.”