"I believe all you have told me," says she; "and I suppose I'm glad of it, although—Well, never mind that. Marian deserves no pity, but still——"
"Pshaw!" says he. "What has Marian got to do with it? Marian never cared that about me." He makes an expressive movement with his fingers—a little snap. "I know now that Marian only played with me. I amused her. I was the plaything of an hour."
"You wrong her there, Maurice."
"Do I? How? They tell us"—with a bitter smile—"that if a woman loves a man she will cling to him through all things—poverty, ill-repute, even crime. But poverty, the least of these things, daunted her."
"She had known so much poverty——"
"Are you pleading her cause now?" says Maurice, with a slight smile. "You plead it badly. The very fact of her knowing it so well should not have deterred her from trying it again with the man she loved. I offered to throw up everything for her, to go abroad, to work, to wrestle with fortune for her sake, but she——" He stops, and draws a long breath. "Well, it is over," says he.
"That is. But your future life——"
"I'm not a favourite of gods, am I?" says he, laughing. "My future life! Well, I leave it to them. So Tita is looking well?"
"Yes; quite well. A little pale, I said."
"She never had much colour. She never speaks of me, I suppose?"