“Of course I believe it. But that isn’t the question. Dash it all, you know as well as I do what I mean. These women are absolutely ignorant of European ideas—of the ideas of such fellows as Danilo. Mrs. Davis poses as worldly-wise, thoroughly initiated, but she is really as ignorant as a child. She has heard that men have mistresses, that husbands are sometimes unfaithful, and so has her daughter, I suppose. But it is all outside their personal experience. It is always some other woman’s husband. It would never occur to either of them that their own husbands could be, or that in this particular instance the husband-to-be is not only unfaithful now, but hasn’t the slightest intention of being faithful in the future—that he would laugh at such an idea—that at this moment he is living here with his mistress....”
“But she is not his mistress,” put in the countess quietly.
Selden, halted in mid-career, could only stare. A dozen conjectures flashed through his mind.
“Not his mistress?” he stammered.
“It is Madame Ghita you are talking about, I suppose?”
“Of course.”
“She is his wife—she has a right to the name; I have even the idea that he is faithful to her.”
“His wife!” Selden gasped. “But....”
“Married quite regularly in Paris—morganatically, of course. I do not know whether you will think that better or worse.”
Selden, his head in a whirl, did not know himself. But of one thing he was sure—the wrong to Madame Ghita would be far worse than he had fancied. He tried to explain this to the countess, who listened with an amused smile.