"That's my own affair," she answered. "I can look after myself. And for all the rest, I'm independent and I'll always be independent. I'll love you whether you're good to me or bad."
"Well, then," he suddenly wheeled round to her, "you'd better have it ... I'm married already."
She took that with a little startled cry. Her eyes searched his face in a puzzled fashion as though she were pursuing the truth. Then she said like a child who sees some toy broken before its eyes:
"Oh, Martin!"
"Yes. Nobody knows—not a soul. It was a mad thing—four years ago in Marseille I met a girl, a little dressmaker there. I went off my head and married her, and then a month later she ran off with a merchant chap, a Greek. I didn't care; we got on as badly as anything ... but there you are. No one knows. That's the whole thing, Maggie. I thought at first I wouldn't tell you. I was beginning to care for you too much, as a matter of fact, and then when your uncle asked me to dinner, I told myself I was a fool to go. Then when I saw how you trusted me, I thought I'd be a cad and let it continue, but somehow ... you've got an influence over me ... You've made me ashamed of things I wouldn't have hesitated about a year ago. And the funny thing is it isn't your looks. I can say things to you I couldn't to other women, and I'll tell you right away that there are lots of women attract me more. And yet I've never felt about any woman as I do about you, that I wanted to be good to her and care for her and love her. It's always whether they loved me that I've thought about ... Well, now I've told you, you see that I'd better go, hadn't I? You see ... you see."
She looked up at him.
"I've got to think. It makes a difference, of course. Can we meet after a week and talk again?"
"Much better if I don't see you any more. I'll go away altogether—abroad again."
"No—after a week—"
"Much better not."