“But,” he reminded her, “you know it was already agreed we were going to separate. There’s no use going into all that again. And I don’t think we better be too thick together this morning, either. What you tell ’em must be convincing.”
But she had had time to get over the first shock, and her manner now grew assertive. “Oh,” she cried, “that’s all very well, my fine fellow, but you don’t seem to be considering my feelings in the matter. You just skip out and leave the hard part for me. If that isn’t just like a man!”
III
The blue roses on her hat were shaking, and the absurd dog kept jerking at his leash, sometimes even forcing her to take a step and regain her balance. Jerome was beginning to feel slightly upset.
“Everybody thinks we’re married,” she babbled, rather disconnectedly, “and that makes it just about the same as if we were. All you do is light out, but what about me? That’s what I want to know!”
“We talked everything over,” he repeated glumly. “I don’t care to argue about it any more. It’s only fair I have my chance now.”
But she was piqued, and her lips still pouted; and then, out of the muddled wretchedness of her heart, she cast up at Jerome the reminder that if she hadn’t been so honest in the first place he’d be her husband now, this minute—he couldn’t help himself. “And then,” she ended, in truly flaming, if somewhat confused triumph, “I guess you’d be a little more cut up about this divorce business—it wouldn’t look quite so easy to you, anyhow, as it does this way!”
“But you had to, Lili!” cried Jerome, not a little horrified, for a moment, despite his worldly poise, at the vista her sordid dreg of self-revelation opened up. “You had to tell about your marriage....”
They looked at each other rather helplessly, till, her mood softening, she faltered: “You never used to be so high and mighty with me, Jerry!”
“But great heavens, Lili, you don’t seem to realize what it means to have two husbands at the same time!”