It was Winn who, curiously enough, began it, and returned to it oftenest. It came to him, this abolishing of Estelle, always more easily than it came to Claire. It was inconceivable to Claire that Winn didn’t, as a rule, remember his wife. She could have understood the tragedy of his marriage, but Winn didn’t make a tragedy of it, he made nothing of it at all. It seemed terrible to Claire that any woman, bearing his name, the mother of his child, should have no life in his heart. She found herself resenting this for Estelle. She tried to make Winn talk about her, so that she might justify her ways to him. But Winn went no further in his expressions than the simple phrases, “She’s not my sort,” “We haven’t anything in common,” “I expect we didn’t hit it off.” Finally he said, terribly, under the persistency of Claire’s pressure, “Well, if you will have it, I don’t believe a single word she says.”
“Oh, but sometimes, sometimes she must speak the truth!” Claire urged, breathless with pity.
“I dare say,” Winn replied indifferently. “Possibly she does, but what difference does it make to me when I don’t know which times?”
Claire waited a little, then she said:
“I wasn’t thinking of the difference to you; I was thinking of the difference to her.”
“I tell you,” Winn repeated obstinately, “that I don’t care a hang about the difference to her. People shouldn’t tell lies. I don’t care that for her!” He snapped a crumb off the table. He looked triumphantly at Claire, under the impression that he had convinced her of a pleasing fact. She burst into tears.
He tried to take her in his arms, but for a moment she resisted him.
“Do you want me to love Estelle?” he asked in desperation.
Claire shook her head.
“I’d like her — to be loved,” she said, still sobbing.