He did not mince words.
“Years ago a man came out of the past and took from me the woman I loved and cherished.”
“Your—your wife?” she asked in a voice suddenly lowered.
“Yes,” he said quietly.
She was silent for a long time.
“I wonder at your courage in taking the risk again,” she said.
“I think I wonder at it myself,” said he. “No, I am not afraid,” he went on, as if convincing himself that there was no risk. “I shall make you love me to the end, Yvonne. I am not afraid. But why do you not ask me for all the wretched story?”
“It is not unlike all stories of its kind, my dear,” she said with an indifference that amazed him. “They are all alike. Why should I ask? The wife takes up with an old lover; she deceives her husband; the world either does or does not find out about it; the home is wrecked; the husband takes to drink; the wife pretends she is happy; the lover takes to women; and the world goes on just the same in spite of them. Sometimes the husband kills. It is of no moment. Sometimes the wife destroys herself. It is a trifle. The whole business is like the magazine story that is for ever being continued in our next. No, I do not ask you for your story, James. Some time you may tell me, but not to-day. I shouldn't mind hearing it if it were an original tale, but God knows it isn't. It's as old as the Nile. But you may tell me more about your son. Is he like you, or like his mother?”
Brood's lips were compressed.
“I can't say that he is like either of us,” he said shortly.