"You think it's a joke, but I assure you— Oh, you WERE joking—about YOUR bust-up?"
"No, indeed," she assured him. "I walked out a while ago, and I couldn't go back if I would—and I don't think I would if I could."
"That's foolish. Better go back," advised he. He was preparing hastily to decamp from so perilous a neighborhood. "One marriage is about like another, once you get through the surface. I'm sure you'll be better off than—back with your stepfather."
"I've no intention of going to his house," she declared. "Oh, there's your brother. I forgot."
"So had I forgotten him. I'll not go there, either. In fact, I've not thought where I'll go."
"You seem to have done mighty little thinking before you took a very serious step for a woman." He was uneasily eying the rigid, abstracted little figure a story up across the way.
"Those things aren't a question of thinking," said she absently. "I never thought in my life—don't think I could if I tried. But when the time came I—I walked out." She came back to herself, laughed. "I don't understand why I'm telling you all this, especially as you're mad with fright and wild to get away. Well, good-by, Stanley."
He lifted his hat. "Good-by. We'll meet when we can do so without my getting a scandal on you." He walked a few paces, turned, and came back. "By the way, I'm sailing on the Deutschland. I thought you'd like to know—so that you and I wouldn't by any chance cross on the same boat."
"Thanks," said she dryly.
"What's the matter?" asked he, arrested, despite his anxiety to be gone, by the sad, scornful look in her eyes.