His arms tightened and slipped up from his brother’s shoulders and around his neck. “Oh, Randal, will it hurt you much?”
Randal looked grave. “A lawsuit is always a troublesome, long-drawn-out bother; I shrink from the suspense and the expense. But I am mighty glad to have the chance to be hurt that way.”
“Oh, I meant will it give you pain to meet Paula again as Mrs. Floyd-Rosney?”
“What?” Randal’s hearty young voice rang out with a note of amazement. “Not a bit. What do you take me for?”
“I was afraid—you would feel,” faltered Adrian.
“Is that what’s the matter with you? You look awfully muffish.”
“Well,—as you loved her once,—I thought——”
“That was a case of mistaken identity,” said Randal. “Can’t you realize that it is just because she could prefer another man; that she could think a thought of change; that her plighted faith could be broken; that her love,—or what we called love,—could take unto itself wings and fly away; that she was only an illusion, a delusion, a snare. I never loved the woman she is.”
“She is very beautiful,” hesitated Adrian.
“When I thought her mind and heart matched her face she seemed beautiful to me, too,” said Randal.