"One risks death every time one crosses a car-crowded thoroughfare. I'll take the risk."
I shrugged my shoulders.
She frowned. "You used to like me once. What stopped you?"
"I haven't stopped."
She smiled bewitchingly and, gliding forward, placed her hand upon my arm. "He wanted to take me away to South America—he owns a ranch there—and to bury us two for ever from the world. That was his idea of marriage. It all came of a rooted disbelief in his own ability to keep me interested in himself while I possessed an opportunity to contrast him with his social equals. He saw a rival in every man I looked at or who looked at me. He should have been born a Turk. I should then have been the queen of his zenana. But no, I must do him justice—he is not polygamously inclined. Still, he would have shut me up."
"The poor devil," I muttered. "It is his disposition. He cannot help himself."
"But he may be cured of it," said Lady Helen. "He thinks every woman is a rake at heart. But he is mad. I for one am not. Mind you, I love society. I like men. I live for admiration. But as to—pshaw!"—she spread out her hands.
"You quarrelled?" I inquired.
"No, we argued the matter out and came to an arrangement. We are good friends. But he does not conceal his opinion that some day or another I will go to the devil. He thinks it inevitable. Pride, however, forbids him from looking on except at a distance. That is why he separated from me. He imagines that no woman can keep true to one man unless she is immured. The fool, the utter fool! As if walls and locks and keys were ever an encumbrance. Love is the only solid guarantee of a woman's faith."
"But my dear Lady Helen, your husband has not the faintest idea that you love him!"