“How little he knows!”
“So I told him.”
She proceeded and surprised Kellock further.
“D’you mean,” he asked presently, “that he could stop you in the open road and talk like this and say all these wise things, as if he was your brother? It’s contrary to nature, and I don’t understand it.”
“More did I,” she answered. “I felt in a dream about it. He might have been a brother. That’s the very word. And last night, as I lay and thought, it came into my head in a very curious way that between you and him as things are, I’ve got two brothers and no husband at all. And God knows, Jordan, if it wouldn’t be better to leave it at that, and let me go free. For if I could win the respect of two such men as you and him by stopping as I am and being wife of neither, it might turn out a lot better for all three of us.”
He stared in deep amazement. He flung away the remains of his meal and stood still with his mouth open.
“Are all women like you?” he said. “Upon my soul, I wonder sometimes—but this—it’s all so unlike what goes on in a man’s mind—where are we? Where are we? You always seem to leave me guessing.”
“I don’t suppose I can make you see, dear Jordan. I’ve had hours and hours to think about it. You come to it fresh. Of course, it sounds strange to you for the minute. You must allow for the surprise. I’m only a woman, and, what with one thing and another, I’ve been that driven and harried lately that my mind is all in a whirl. It’ll come right no doubt. He’s not going to claim damages. That’s one certainty, and that ought to comfort you. And I think when you see him, at his orders—”
“‘His orders’?”
“Well, my dear man, do be reasonable. You jump down my throat so! It’s no good questioning every word I say. It makes me despair. I haven’t got your flow of language, and if I can’t pick my words, you needn’t quarrel about them.”