I had remained in bed; she was by the fireplace. A distance between us seemed necessary.
‘You can’t do anything, my dear,’ she said. ‘Only I was obliged to talk to someone, after all the night. It’s about Frank.’
‘Mr. Ispenlove!’ I ejaculated, acting as well as I could, but not very well.
‘Yes. He has left me.’
‘But why? What is the matter?’
Even to recall my share in this interview with Mary Ispenlove humiliates me. But perhaps I have learned the value of humiliation. Still, could I have behaved differently?
‘You won’t understand unless I begin a long time ago,’ said Mary Ispenlove. ‘Carlotta, my married life has been awful—awful—a tragedy. It has been a tragedy both for him and for me. But no one has suspected it; we have hidden it.’
I nodded. I, however, had suspected it.
‘It’s just twenty years—yes, twenty—since I fell in love,’ she proceeded, gazing at me with her soft, moist eyes.
‘With—Frank,’ I assumed. I lay back in bed.