“By Jove! And that independent young lady’s willing to come round now, is she? Wouldn’t let you take anything from me, I remember. What is it now? Baby?”
“Presently. But, I say, Horace, it’s not that one.”
“Good God!” cried Horace, in amazement. “Another one!”
“Her sister.... I—er—it’s hard to explain....”
“She was a pretty girl,” said Horace, “I thought she’d suit you very well.”
Lionel’s face had become very red. It was undoubtedly difficult to explain, and yet he wanted terribly to tell it all to someone, to hear another person’s comment, to be told definitely whether he was a natural man or a cad. Honestly he didn’t know. There were some incidents that absolutely couldn’t be mentioned. And yet, if they were omitted, the story would be unintelligible.
“I’ll have to—you’ll have to assure me—give me your word you’ll never mention this—— Especially to Julie. I’m only telling you because I want you to—understand the whole thing....”
He was very anxious, above all, to remove any impression that he was fickle, unstable.
“You see,” he began, “I—Frances and I were separated. More or less by her sister. That is, her sister thought it wasn’t a good match for Frankie, so she prevented it. She explained it all to me, perfectly frankly. She knows Frankie so well, you see. Knew she couldn’t be happy with me. So she ... explained it all. Of course, I had to see her several times, to talk it over, and so forth. And—I—really, this is hard to tell, you know, without seeming—— She—the sister—took a sort of fancy to me. I didn’t—hadn’t any idea of such a thing.... I asked her to lend me some money so that I could go out to see Frankie—and—she brought it over to me, in my room....”
“Why?” enquired Horace, “What made her come to your room?”