I felt a spasm of petulant annoyance at this unexpected catastrophe.
“I should like to wring Smithie’s brother’s neck,” I said....
Marion spoke in dry, broken fragments of sentences. “You... I’d always thought that anyhow you couldn’t deceive me... I suppose all men are horrid—about this.”
“It doesn’t strike me as horrid. It seems to me the most necessary consequence—and natural thing in the world.”
I became aware of some one moving about in the passage, and went and shut the door of the room, then I walked back to the hearthrug and turned.
“It’s rough on you,” I said. “But I didn’t mean you to know. You’ve never cared for me. I’ve had the devil of a time. Why should you mind?”
She sat down in a draped armchair. “I have cared for you,” she said.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I suppose,” she said, “she cares for you?”
I had no answer.