"Dear Théo——" Suddenly she remembered that other moonlight night, nearly a year before, when she had accepted him. She recalled the look of the beautiful old house, the sound of Tommy at the pianola, the splashing of the fountain, the sun-dial at which, in his boyish grief, he had knelt.
And she had accepted his love, not because she loved him but because she hated her home and because, besides being sufficiently rich to satisfy her needs, he was nice and straight and kind. She had taken everything he had, and what had she given him? Nothing.
In the moonlight she saw as if with new eyes that he had changed. The young contours of his cheek were less round, his eyes had a deeper expression. He had suffered, and he had not complained.
"Théo," she said suddenly, smitten with pity, "I—have been horrid to you. I—I am so frightfully selfish. Will you forgive me?"
His eyes glistened as he looked at her.
"Forgive you? You angel!"
"No, no. I have been horrid. But—I will be nicer. And—you are so good to me."
He was silent for a moment, then he said slowly:
"Brigitte—you are never horrid. But—if you do not—care for me at all—will you tell me now?"
She was abashed and then shivered. Here was the chance she had longed for. He would, she knew, give her up without a word if she asked him to; and she had also learned to know that whatever Joyselle might have done in like case a few months before, he would not refuse to see her now if she told him that she and Théo had agreed to separate.