"Limousine ladies!" Jerry gripped her temper and controlled her voice. "Pardon! My mistake," she drawled maddeningly. "Is—is Mrs. Denbigh divorced?"
"Not yet. What Old Nick said about Phil's mother was true. She did ruin his life. It would have been better for him and for her had he been shot to pieces, than to have him as he is now with this gnawing shame at his heart."
"She—she was not much like your mother, was she?"
"Like Mother?" Jerry thought she had never heard anything so beautiful as that word "Mother" as Courtlandt uttered it. He smiled up at the portrait—"Mother was—well——" he cleared the huskiness from his voice and went on, "As I was saying about Denbigh, remorse got too much for him and a year ago he disappeared, dropped completely out of sight."
"Why didn't Felice go with him?"
"Do you know, I fancy that Phil didn't want her."
"Nevertheless she had married him. One doesn't take the vow 'and forsaking all others' to break it, does one?" gravely.
"I deduce from that that you do not believe in divorce?"
"Divorce! While I acknowledge that there may be situations where it is unavoidable, I hate the word. Always to me it takes on the semblance of Medusa's head in my school mythology, its snaky, hissing locks striking, stabbing, stinging, scarring indelibly. I believe in keeping covenants."
"It's hard sometimes."