"I don't see anything very prophetic about that," he said, walking into the drawing-room, where she followed him, clutching at the lace handkerchief in her hand. "It was as plain as daylight to any one that heard him talk and saw what kind of man he was."
"I don't mean your seeing merely that. I could tell from what you said that you saw a great deal more. Don't you remember what you said about professional jealousy not being the worst kind of jealousy in the world? That was the first thing that opened my eyes. I went to the next matinée to see for myself if it could be true, and if I hadn't been an idiot I should have realized it all then. But the next day, just before we left for Berlin, I called on that poor woman, and she seemed so much easier in mind, I thought I must have misunderstood what you meant and been mistaken about that look."
"My dear, I don't quite follow you. Aren't you just a little bit illogical?"
"No, I'm not. I'm perfectly logical. I never was more logical in my life."
"I suppose you mean that the fellow has got tired of his wife, now that she's given up her dive, and he's fallen in love with the other woman."
Mrs. Tate rose tragically from her chair and made a sweeping gesture with her right hand. "With the other woman's performance."
Tate looked at her for a moment, with smiling incredulity. "How ridiculous!" he said.
"That's exactly what I said when you told me he had fallen in love with his wife's performance. I said it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard in my life. I couldn't have believed it if I hadn't observed it with my own eyes. But that afternoon I saw him—he stood near me, leaning against the railing—and I wish you could have seen the expression in his face while that woman was exhibiting herself, especially when she made her horrible dives."
For a moment Tate stood without speaking. Then he said:—
"I'm afraid you're putting a romantic interpretation on a very simple sequence of events. That fellow probably did fall in love with his wife's performance, and incidentally he liked the money that went with it. When she stopped her diving and became an ordinary performer, like thousands of others, she ceased to interest him. Then he looked around for some one else to be interested in, and when the other acrobatic person appeared he was just in the condition to be caught."