Summerlad frowned, at a loss to identify the volume in her extended hand.
"I found it, Lynn, quite by accident, while I was waiting. Hope's Indian Love Lyrics. Don't you remember?... See, it's inscribed: 'To my Lynn, on the first anniversary of our marriage, with all my heart, Nelly.' And then this picture of you two, published just after you came here to live.... Oh, Lynn! why did you lie to me about that poor girl?"
For a moment Summerlad gnawed his underlip without attempting to reply. Then with a sign of despair he retreated to one end of the club-lounge, against which he rested, to ease his foot. He said something in an angry mumble, as Lucinda followed into the room.
"You might have told me, Lynn...."
"I didn't want you to know."
"You must have known I'd find out, sooner or later."
"I thought I could keep it from you until...."
"Till when? Till what?" He growled, inarticulate with vexation. "To let me go on thinking ... making such a fool of myself!... Since you don't live together, why aren't you divorced?"
"How do you know I'm not?"
"Because you told me that lying story about her. But you've lied to me so much and so long, no doubt you think it unreasonable of me now to expect you to remember everything.... Anyway, if you'd been divorced, you wouldn't have hesitated to own it. Why aren't you?"