"Don't be ridiculous," she cried. "I never said anything of the sort. I'm very fond of you. But——" she stirred a little restlessly in her chair. "I've never believed, as you know, in beating about the bush, and there is another man whom I'm very fond of, too."
The dull, sickening blow, which well-nigh stunned him mentally, showed not at all on Hugh Massingham's face.
"One can't help these things," continued his wife, gravely, "and I think you'll agree that it is best for everybody to discuss matters as they are—rather than go on living as if they were otherwise."
"Quite," he murmured, grimly. "Please go on."
"We need neither of us insult our intelligences by regarding the matter in the light that our fathers and mothers would have looked at it. The fact that a married woman falls in love with a man who is not her husband is not a thing to hold up hands of pious horror at—or so it seems to me; it is just a thing which has happened, and if one is sensible, the best course is to see the most satisfactory way out for all concerned. Don't you agree?"
"Your argument certainly has its points," concurred Hugh. Great heavens! was this conversation real, or was he dreaming?
"Jimmy Staunton has kissed me—but that's all."
His wife was speaking again, and he listened dully.
"Jimmy Staunton! Is that the man's name?"
He threw his cigarette, long gone out, into the grate.