She let him lift her and put her back in her chair. He made no attempt to take her in his arms.
He took the chair opposite hers and smiled wryly. “I don’t fancy I’m as impulsive as I was! Ishbel told me when I returned last week. If I had heard—say, during the first year of our acquaintance—I should have got one of these new motor cars and flown to your rescue without a plan. But much water has flowed under our bridges since then!”
“Don’t you love me any longer?” Julia sat up alertly and dried her eyes.
“I’ve always loved you and I fancy I always shall. But—well, we are only young once—young in the sense of love being the one thing to live and breathe for. And, then, I have had a resource! There have been many months when I have been able to put you out of my head altogether. That is what work, productive work, does for a chap. And after—well, soon after that night at Bosquith, I hated you for a time. You could never be the same delicious wonderful child again. That would have broken my heart if I had not both hated you and taken the first train into the kingdom of Micomicon. Even when I found you so charming, when I saw so much of you, that next season, I still congratulated myself that I was jolly well over it. But—well—you never really ceased to haunt me—you had a way of asserting yourself in the most disconcerting fashion. When I heard of the duke’s marriage, I began to worry—I knew that life would not go as smoothly with you—I had heard from the girls that you managed France very cleverly, saw comparatively little of him. Out there in Africa, I never was alone at night that I didn’t find myself thinking of you. But I never guessed—When the girls told me, I thought I’d go off my head. It’s too awful! Too awful!”
“It’s not so bad now. I have five pistols in the house.”
“I know. But what a life! It is so hideous that it is almost farcical.”
“People’s troubles are generally rather absurd when you come to think of them. And I fancy I’m a good deal better off than a lot of women. Many have husbands that are worse than lunatics, and as the divorce laws won’t help them, they suffer in silence, without a ray of hope. At least I may hope mine will betray himself in public sooner or later. I can manage him in a way, and of death I have not the least fear —”
“Oh! It is all too dreadful! How old are you? Twenty-five? It’s awful! Awful! But you must end it —”
“If I could conceal two alienists in the house long enough —”
“But you can’t. Nor would their certificate give you real freedom. I’ve no doubt he’ll go raving mad in time—but when one reflects upon what he might do first! No! I have not come here without a plan, and here it is: You must go to the United States at once and get a divorce. There is a place called Reno, where one can be got at the end of about ten months. Bridgit will go with you. We held a conclave over it—we two and Ishbel—not the first! Great heaven! What an eternity ago that seems—” He laughed bitterly. “Once—was it only seven years ago?—we three talked the subject over and came to much the same conclusions, but our plans were frustrated by France’s illness. Well—we were all young then, but it was a good plan and we readopted it. You must get away from this without delay—there has been enough! When the divorce is granted, I’ll follow and marry you if you will have me. If not, we’ll provide for you in whatever part of America you choose to live in. But I hope you’ll marry me. I don’t think I ever really loved you before. When Ishbel told me! When just now you crouched by that fire!”