“Why not?”
“Oh, hang it all!” Aynesworth declared. “I’m not a moralist, but she’s a decent little woman. Don’t ruin her life for the sake of a little diversion!”
Wingrave, who had been holding a cigar case in his hand for the last few minutes, opened it, and calmly selected a cigar.
“Aren’t you a little melodramatic, Aynesworth?” he said.
“Sounds like it, no doubt,” his companion answered, “but after all, hang it, she’s not a bad little sort, and you wouldn’t care to meet her in Piccadilly in a couple of years’ time.”
Wingrave turned a little in his chair. There was a slight hardening of the mouth, a cold gleam in his eyes.
“That,” he remarked, “is precisely where you are wrong. I am afraid you have forgotten our previous conversations on this or a similar subject. Disconnect me in your mind at once from all philanthropic notions! I desire to make no one happy, to assist at no one’s happiness. My own life has been ruined by a woman. Her sex shall pay me where it can. If I can obtain from the lady in question a single second’s amusement, her future is a matter of entire indifference to me. She can play the repentant wife, or resort to the primeval profession of her sex. I should not even have the curiosity to inquire which.”
“In that case,” Aynesworth said slowly, “I presume that I need say no more.”
“Unless it amuses you,” Wingrave answered, “it really is not worth while.”
“Perhaps,” Aynesworth remarked, “it is as well that I should tell you this. I shall put the situation before Mrs. Travers exactly as I see it. I shall do my best to dissuade her from any further or more intimate intercourse with you.”