She put up her mignonne oval face to kiss me.
"I have heard so much of you," she said. "I wanted so to see you. I wish you could have stayed." And so we kissed and parted.
When I got into the automobile outside, I felt as if I were going to faint for a few awful moments. Everything was clear to me now! I remembered the little photograph on his mantel-piece, his sudden changing of the conversation, a number of small things unnoticed at the time. How had I been so ridiculously blind? It was because she seemed so great and noble, and utterly apart from all these things.
Had it been Babykins or Lady Grenellen, or any other woman, this discovery would have made no difference to me. I did not doubt that Antony loved me, and me only, now. He had been "not wearyingly faithful," like the rest of his world, that was all.
But she—Lady Tilchester—my friend! Oh, I could not take her lover from her! She who had always been so good to me, from the first moment of our acquaintance, kind and sympathetic and dear! I owed her deepest gratitude. If one of us must suffer, it should certainly be I. I could not play her false like this. Of course she loved him still! He was often with her, I knew, and her face had softened when first she spoke of him. They had known each other for fourteen years, she had said. I seemed to see it all. This was her "mid-summer madness," and Antony had gone away to travel for several years, and then returned to her again. They had probably been so happy together until I came upon the scene.
Well, they can be happy once more when he forgets me. I, at least, shall not stand in the way. Dear Margaret, I am not so mean as that! You shall keep your lover, and I will never have mine!
All my life I shall hate the road to Versailles. "Go at top speed,"
I told my chauffeur.
I felt if we might dash against a tree and have done with the whole matter, it would be the best thing in the end.
The rapid motion through the air revived me. I had my wits about me when we drew up at the hotel door.
"I am going to Switzerland to-night," I said to McGreggor. "Pack up everything."