He stood up also, darkly red under his rich sunburn, and forced a smile.
“Really,” he protested, “all things considered—and after a separation of six months!” She was silent. “My dear,” he continued mildly, “will you tell me what you expect me to think?”
“Oh, don’t take that tone,” she murmured.
“What tone?”
“As if—as if—you still imagined we could go back—”
She saw his face fall. Had he ever before, she wondered, stumbled upon an obstacle in that smooth walk of his? It flashed over her that this was the danger besetting men who had a “way with women”—the day came when they might follow it too blindly.
The reflection evidently occurred to him almost as soon as it did to her. He summoned another propitiatory smile, and drawing near, took her hand gently. “But I don’t want to go back.... I want to go forward, dearest.... Now that at last you’re free.”
She seized on the word as if she had been waiting for her cue. “Free! Oh, that’s it—free! Can’t you see, can’t you understand, that I mean to stay free?”
Again a shadow of distrust crossed his face, and the smile he had begun for her reassurance seemed to remain on his lips for his own.
“But of course! Can you imagine that I want to put you in chains? I want you to be as free as you please—free to love me as much as you choose!” He was visibly pleased with the last phrase.