Pendleton looked at him doubtfully—was it hurt pride or just plain jealousy? He could not determine. Stephanie had lost Amherst; but she had come back and Lorraine had denied her—and yet, here he was positively shaking with rage, because he thought he had surprised her in a rendezvous with another man. He had cast her off before all the world, and yet he wanted still to dictate as to what she did!
Pendleton glanced at Stephanie; she flashed him a smile, and shook her head not to become involved in a quarrel.
"Well, what have you to say?" sputtered Lorraine.
"Before I answer," returned Pendleton calmly, "I would like to know by what right you ask?"
"By what right I ask! By what right do you think I ask. Isn't she still my wife?"
"She is your wife—but you have lost all right to supervise her actions. She is free of you—absolutely free. You made her free on the Club-house piazza yesterday. You have no more authority over her than any other man—you have less, indeed, for you renounced even that when you disowned her and cast her adrift."
"So long as she bears my name, she shall not trail it in the mire in this town by a vulgar, public assignation, if I can prevent it. I have cause enough without that disgrace!" Lorraine declared. "Until the Courts have divorced us she shall be decent, ostensibly at least—afterward I don't care what she does nor when."
Pendleton frowned.
"That is discourteously blunt language, Lorraine," he replied.
"It is not the time nor the occasion to mince words," Lorraine retorted. "You are here by pre-arrangement and——"