“And what is to come of all these fine compacts, may one ask?”
What indeed! God knew best what house, if any, could be built upon the shifting sand of this man’s nature and the ashes of my heart’s desire! I could not prophesy with my hope; I could only try to keep from my voice the despair that obsessed me.
“A home perhaps that you and I can live in with peace and honour, Maurice,” I faltered at last. “Who knows; we may yet build some fine thing with the wreckage of our old selves. If we learn to tolerate and help and comfort each other—will not that be something? Perhaps in the end friendship may come.”
He interrupted me with a fleering laugh.
“Friendship! You think that is what a man marries a beautiful girl like you for? You talk like a fool. If friendship was what I wanted I could have got it—and a jolly sight more, too—without tying myself up for life. It is not every woman who finds me so objectionable as my wife apparently does. Friendship be damned!”
“It is all I ever promised you,” I broke out at him then. “I told you when we made our bargain that you must expect nothing from me but my presence in your house, and my help in your career. You swore you would ask nothing more of me.”
“A likely story,” he answered. “Who ever means those tom-fool things?”
“I meant them if you did not, and I mean to stand by them,” I said firmly, though my soul shook at this faithlessness; this trampling under foot of solemn vows.
“We’ll see about that,” he said darkly.
“We will see about it now. It will be finally and definitely settled now, or I will leave this house, and you. If your promises do not bind you neither will I be bound to you.”