“I’m sorry you’ve got to pretend,” he answered.
He had fought awhile against any sort of secret understanding with Medora, but something of the kind now existed, though Jordan could not have explained how it had come about. It seemed not unnatural, however, because he knew the woman so well and felt so supremely interested in her happiness. He believed, in his youthful inexperience, that he might be able to help both Ned and Medora by virtue of his brains and good sense; and he imagined that his championship of Medora, so to call it, emanated entirely from his own will to right and justice. Had anybody hinted to him that Medora was amusing herself with this very delicate material, he must have refused to believe it. He believed in her good faith as he believed in the stars, and he trusted himself completely for a man above the power of temptation. Indeed, as yet he had felt none.
To-day, however, the young woman went further than she had ventured to go.
“I can talk to you, Jordan, and I often thank God I can,” she said, “because there’s nobody else on earth—not one who understands me like you do.”
Not in the ear of him who really understands her does a woman ever confess to be understood; but the listener quite agreed with Medora and believed the truth of what she asserted.
“If thought and true friendship could make me understand, then I do,” he answered. “Ned’s such a real good chap at heart that—”
“He’s not,” she said positively. “To my bitter grief I know he’s not. Like you, I thought so, and I made myself go on thinking so, for loyalty; but it’s no good pretending that any more. He’s deceived you as he has me. He’s not good hearted, for all his laughter and noise, else he wouldn’t persecute me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m not going into details,” declared Medora, quite aware that there were no details to go into; “but he’s that rough and harsh. Loses his temper if you look at him. He wasn’t like you, and showed me everything about himself when we were courting. He hid the things that matter, and if I’d known then half, or a quarter, of what I know now, I wouldn’t have taken him, Jordan.”
“Don’t say that,” he begged again.