"Never meant? Good heavens! I told you six months ago that I loved you, and ever since then you have let me go here and there with you, and I have told you of my love again and again."
"But you have always been so good. You have never been unkind to me before to-night."
"Good God! Unkind! Why, most men would have divorced their wives on far less evidence than we have furnished. And all the while you have accepted the position without a murmur. You don't know what you have done."
"Colling, what do you mean?"
"Mean?" he answered. "I mean that you have led me to believe that you didn't care what we did—what people said about us. Mean? I mean that the call of love is in the spring, Peggy, whispering to you and me. Mean? I mean that I am a man and you are a woman—our souls stand bare to one another—that I love you and that you love me."
He sprang at her and caught her up in his arms once more.
"I don't love you, Colling! Let me go!" she cried.
"I can't let you go! It is my hour! It is your fault as well as mine! Kiss me, Peggy! You have tortured me long enough! Kiss me!"
He held her tight, tight! His face blazed. There was a fury in his voice.
At that very moment when he stopped speaking and was gazing down at her, while she lay for a moment almost passive in his arms after her first fight and struggle, a loud, sharp, clear sound rang out in the room. It was the bell of the telephone upon the wall.