“I feel that I knew it all along, somehow!” she said.
“Yes, so did I.... That’s the queer thing. All this other—”
“Was just Phyllis’s game with Clive. I don’t mean she did it on purpose. She couldn’t help it!”
“It was Clive’s game too,” he insisted.
“In a sense, yes.... She tormented him, ran away from him—and played up to you—all for Clive’s sake.... I’m sorry, Felix!”
“For me? You needn’t be. You were victimized too. By your pride—just as I by my vanity.”
“Yes,” she said, “and now—at last—they can have their happiness!”
They were silent for a moment, contemplating the tragic farce in which they had acted their tragi-comic parts.
“So,” he said ironically, “it was to make their marriage possible that we were so busy destroying our own!”
“No—I won’t have that. If she’s hurt you, I’m sorry, Felix; I really am. But I can’t think of us just as helpless victims. Why did we do it? We have our own quarrel, Felix.”