“Has it made you miserable, my Gyp?”
His voice had a ring of hope. She answered, startled:
“I? No—her.”
“Her? Ho! It is an experience for her—it is life. It will do her no harm.”
“No; nothing will do anybody harm if it gives you pleasure.”
At that bitter retort, he kept silence a long time, now and then heaving a long sigh. His words kept sounding in her heart: “The soul, not the body, is faithful.” Was he, after all, more faithful to her than she had ever been, could ever be—who did not love, had never loved him? What right had she to talk, who had married him out of vanity, out of—what?
And suddenly he said:
“Gyp! Forgive!”
She uttered a sigh, and turned away her face.
He bent down against the eider-down. She could hear him drawing long, sobbing breaths, and, in the midst of her lassitude and hopelessness, a sort of pity stirred her. What did it matter? She said, in a choked voice: