"Absolutely," Fyfe answered without hesitation.
"Then that's all there is to it," she replied, "unless—unless you're ready to give me up as a hopeless case, and let me go away and blunder along the best I can."
He shook his head.
"I haven't even considered that," he said. "Very likely it's unwise of me to say this,—it will probably antagonize you,—but I know Monohan better than you do. I'd go pretty far to keep you two apart—now—for your sake."
"It would be the same if it were any other man," she muttered. "I can understand that feeling in you. It's so—so typically masculine."
"No, you're wrong there, dead wrong," Fyfe frowned. "I'm not a self-sacrificing brute by any means. Still, knowing that you'll only live with me on sufferance, if you were honestly in love with a man that I felt was halfway decent, I'd put my feelings in my pocket and let you go. If you cared enough for him to break every tie, to face the embarrassment of divorce, why, I'd figure you were entitled to your freedom and whatever happiness it might bring. But Monohan—hell, I don't want to talk about him. I trust you, Stella. I'm banking on your own good sense. And along with that good, natural common sense, you've got so many illusions. About life in general, and about men. They seem to have centered about this one particular man. I can't open your eyes or put you on the right track. That's a job for yourself. All I can do is to sit back and wait."
His voice trailed off huskily.
Stella put a hand on his shoulder.
"Do you care so much as all that, Jack?" she whispered. "Even in spite of what you know?"
"For two years now," he answered, "you've been the biggest thing in my life. I don't change easy; I don't want to change. But I'm getting hopeless."