"Do you love that scoundrel Amherst?" he asked.
"I do not," was the calm answer—"and you have termed him rightly—he is a scoundrel."
"Do you love any other man?"
"I do not!" looking him straight in the face.
"Then let us try it, Stephanie," he said.
But she shook her head again.
"It is not just to you——"
"Let me be the judge of that," he cut in.
"Neither is it just to me," she ended. "You will take me back for the sake of appearances. You think to save me and yourself some temporary unpleasantness by obviating a divorce—by preventing scare headlines in the papers. You don't see that you would be making untold unpleasantness for us both through the remainder of our lives. When we are apart and need only the Court's severing decree, why should we assume a life of wretchedness for both? I bear the heavier burden now. I am content to bear it for a little while—until the world has forgotten—rather than to purchase that forgetfulness by a reconciliation which would be only in name—and scarcely in name, indeed."
"Why should it be only in name?" he asked, leaning toward her. "It won't be with me, dear."