He had to gulp all the same, thinking of Aimée and her bottles and her bag of impedimenta.
“And now you spoil it all,” she said sorrowfully. “By taking me for one of those hateful, disloyal women to whom any man may make love the moment she is out of her husband’s sight!”
“In all humility I beg you to forgive me,” said Bettington.
There was no doubt about it that for once in his life he was getting the worst of it, but somehow he minded that fact less than he minded the tightening grip round his heart. In grim earnest, now, he heard “the tolling of Life’s curfew” bidding them to part, and he wondered what he should do with the rest of his life. She had not quite finished rubbing his nose in the dust.
“How can I forgive you? I should not consider myself worthy of the worst or weakest man in the world if I were such a woman as you thought.”
But Bettington’s nose was too sore for any further ill-treatment. His natural combativeness began to reassert itself.
“I didn’t think anything,” he said moodily. “I just couldn’t help loving you, that’s all. If you want me to abase myself any more, Amber, say so, and I’ll do it. But that won’t prevent me from going on loving you.”
She intimated with great dignity that she wished nothing further of him but the courtesy of his escort back to the hotel. They returned in silence, but at the door of the stoep, just as she was on the point of going in, she said quietly:
“I may as well tell you that my name is Juliet. Amber is my sister’s name.”
That was the last straw! He went away raging. How could he have wasted the golden treasure of his heart on her? She was one of those coldblooded brutes of women who think they can do anything they like with men—(instead of letting men do anything they like with them!) He thought he should never feel better again, except after a bottle of Guinness’s mixed with a pint of champagne. But even that had a less satisfactory effect than usual.