"You mean, am I having an affair with her?"
She hung her head, but managed to make a slight nod of assent.
He laughed. "No." He laughed again. "No—not thus far, my dear." He laughed a third time, with still stronger and stranger mockery. "She congratulated me on my engagement with a sincerity that would have piqued a man who was interested in her."
"Will you forgive me?" Josephine said. "What I've just been feeling and saying and putting you through—it's beneath both of us. I suppose a woman—no woman—can help being nasty where another woman is concerned."
With his satirical good-humored smile, "I don't in the least blame you."
"And you'll not think less of me for giving way to a thing so vulgar?"
He kissed her with a carelessness that made her wince But she felt that she deserved it—and was grateful. He said: "Why don't you go over and see for yourself? No doubt Tetlow gave you the address—and no doubt you have remembered it."
She colored and hastily turned her head. "Don't punish me," she pleaded.
"Punish you? What nonsense! . . . Do you want me to take you over? The laboratory would interest you—and Miss Hallowell is lovelier than ever. She has an easier life now. Office work wears on women terribly."
Josephine looked at him with a beautiful smile of love and trust. "You wish to be sure I'm cured. Well, can't you see that I am?"