He put up the receiver, turned to his wife with a grim smile.
“Now we shall see what Harry’s other choice is like,” he said.
She was not to be diverted.
“But, Jack—you’ll tell her?—You must tell her!” she implored.
He looked her full in the eyes. His voice was grave.
“Evelyn! Are you tired of our life together? Do you prefer him to me?”
She turned away her head with a hopeless gesture.
“Oh, don’t ask me! Don’t tempt me!—I don’t want to think of myself—I only want to do what is right! And how can it be right to—to let him go away like a stranger from all that was his!”
He laid his hands upon her shoulders, forced her gaze to meet his again.
“And is it right, Evelyn, to break your life, to break my life, to break this woman’s life—to put Harry himself into an impossible position—out of a quixotic regard for pure ethics?”