“That’s how I felt about it when Paul walked into my office yesterday,” he observed.
“Yesterday!” she repeated. “You knew this yesterday? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“For obvious reasons,” he answered. “I hoped when Paul heard of the second marriage he’d see the wisdom of clearing out. But he didn’t. I wonder how I would have acted had it been my case? Whether, if I had disappeared and returned to find you married again, I would have slipped away and left the other fellow in possession? Largely, of course,” he added reflectively, “it would depend on whether I wanted you. If I had wanted you all right, the other fellow would have had to quit. That’s as plain as print anyway. No doubt I gave Paul fairly rotten advice. However he didn’t take it; so there it is.”
“You are positively immoral,” Rose exclaimed indignantly. “There is no question about the matter at all. They are man and wife.”
“I wasn’t dealing in morality in offering my advice,” he answered, grinning. “I was thinking of the simplest way out of the difficulty.”
“The path of least resistance—yes,” she said. “And it didn’t strike you that in shirking difficulties one makes others? A fine crop of criminal complications you would have started. Besides, Paul isn’t a man to take advice.”
“No; he is not to be moved from his purpose once his mind is made up. Incidentally, he’s rather a fine chap.”
“He drinks,” she said.
“I imagine he has learned control,” he returned quickly. “You are a little unfair in your judgment, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps I am,” she allowed. “I never liked him. I resent his coming back and upsetting everything. What a talk there’ll be!”