"I didn't mean to imply that," said Franklin. "On my honor."
"Thank you," she said, and was silent again. The conscientious beat of the engines made a sort of tune. Then she got up and faced him, dropping artificiality. "Why did you tell me you were married?"
"Ah!" thought Franklin, "it is that, then." He said nothing. He was no match for women.
"Couldn't you have been honest with me, of all people? You know my feelings for you. I was above board. Whatever the reason for hatching this extraordinary story I wouldn't have given you away. I would have helped you."
"I can't discuss this with you," said Franklin, "you were at the Vanderdykes. You saw the papers. Beatrix is on the yacht. There it is. I can't see any reason why you should say that she and I are not married."
"Can't you? Haven't I seen you together for the last three days? Wouldn't my eyes be the first to notice any sign of love or affection between you, or even toleration? I came on the yacht expecting to be made to suffer the jealous agony of the damned and I find,—it's easy enough,—that this honeymoon is a farce. You are a bachelor entertaining two duly chaperoned women."
What could Franklin do but lie? "Beatrix is my wife," he said, "and the way in which we treat each other is our affair."
"Oh, no, believe me," said Mrs. Larpent quickly. "That's where you're wrong. I am in this. You were on the verge of loving me before Beatrix cropped up. You may decline to accept this as a fact but I tell you that you were, and I know. You stand there looking at me in amazement because I am not afraid or ashamed to tell the truth. Women are more or less a mystery to you and you've got a rooted idea that we must go through life hiding our souls behind light laughter and lace veils. And so we do until the inevitable hour when we come out into the open to fight for love. This is my hour, Pelham, and I stand in front of you as common and as human as a peasant woman or a squaw."
Her voice shook with emotion and she seemed to Franklin to be taller and more beautiful and more dignified than he had ever seen her. All the same he wished to Heaven that both these women had never come into his life, that he were still a free agent, a mere sportsman, as Beatrix called him so scornfully, the captain of his fate.
"I don't like your talking like this," he said, with a curiously boyish bluntness and awkwardness. "It isn't fair to yourself—or me."