"What did you sell? Your jewels?"
"Some. I never wear anything but the pearls anyhow; and it's bad taste to wear jewels unless you're wealthy. I had some old lace that is hard to buy now, and real lace isn't the fashion any more. New rich people always think it's just the thing. I also sold her two of the biggest and clumsiest of the Italian pieces. She is crazy about them. Anne told her that they were as good as a passport."
Mortimer sprang to the only, the naïve, the eternal masculine conclusion.
"You do love me still!" The dull eyes of his spirit flashed with the sudden rejuvenation of his heavy body. "I never really believed you had ceased to care…. you were capricious like all women … a little spoilt. I knew that if I had patience … Only a loving wife would do such a thing."
Alexina made a wry face at the banality of his climax, although the fatuous outburst had barely amused her.
"No, I don't love you in the least, Mortimer, and never shall. Make up your mind to that. Love some one else if you like…. I did this for two reasons: I did not have the courage to tell Gora the truth—and that I was too unjust and penurious to restore the money you had taken; and as your wife it would have hurt my pride unbearably."
"And you are not afraid to trust me with this money?" he asked, his voice toneless.
"Not in the least. There's no other way to manage it and I fancy you know what would happen if you didn't hand it over. There is such a thing as the last straw."