He listened doggedly to her account of the hospital gossip, doggedly and with a sinking sense of fear, not of the talk, but of Carlotta herself. Usually one might count on the woman's silence, her instinct for self-protection. But Carlotta was different. Damn the girl, anyhow! She had known from the start that the affair was a temporary one; he had never pretended anything else.
There was silence for a moment after Sidney finished. Then:
“You are not a child any longer, Sidney. You have learned a great deal in this last year. One of the things you know is that almost every man has small affairs, many of them sometimes, before he finds the woman he wants to marry. When he finds her, the others are all off—there's nothing to them. It's the real thing then, instead of the sham.”
“Palmer was very much in love with Christine, and yet—”
“Palmer is a cad.”
“I don't want you to think I'm making terms. I'm not. But if this thing went on, and I found out afterward that you—that there was anyone else, it would kill me.”
“Then you care, after all!”
There was something boyish in his triumph, in the very gesture with which he held out his arms, like a child who has escaped a whipping. He stood up and, catching her hands, drew her to her feet. “You love me, dear.”
“I'm afraid I do, Max.”
“Then I'm yours, and only yours, if you want me,” he said, and took her in his arms.