Rachel was a great deal younger than she knew and a great deal more contemptuous of the other half world than her experience of it justified. Strangely enough this confidence on Roddy's part angered her more than anything else could have done.
"The fact is that since our marriage we've never got to know each other in the least. We talk and go to places together and you give me things and I give you things—and that's all. I don't know you and now, after to-day, I can't trust you——"
He coloured a little at that, but said nothing.
She went on, rather fast and her breath coming between her words: "But I'm not going to be so silly as to make a scene because I saw you kissing Nita Raseley. She's simply not worth thinking about,—but you ought to be straighter to me all the way round. If you've wanted to be kind to me as you say, then you might have taken me more into your life——"
"Well," said Roddy slowly, "if you'd managed to love me a bit, Rachel, things might be different."
This answer was so utterly unexpected that it took her like a blow. That Roddy should attack her when he had, only a few hours before, been discovered so abominably!
"What do you mean, Roddy?" she stammered angrily. "Love you? But——"
"Yes," he persisted doggedly, "I know when you accepted me you said you didn't and I know that I hadn't any right to expect it, but I believe if you hadn't thought me such a silly ass and hadn't looked all the time as though you were just indulgin' my silly fancies until somethin' more sensible had come along, things might have been different. I'm the sort of feller," Roddy said, choosing his words carefully, "that you could have made anythin' out of, Rachel. I'm weak in some ways—most men are—and when a thing comes dancin' along lookin' ever so temptin', why, then I generally have to go after it. But you could have kept me, Rachel, more than anyone I've ever known——"
She was not touched nor moved, only angered that he, so obviously in the wrong, should attempt justification.
"Yes," she said hotly. "And I suppose in another moment you'll be telling me that it's silly of me to be angry at what I saw this afternoon?"