“I am going to make you very unhappy for a little while.”
“Well?”
“I've had a lot of time to think. If you had really wanted me, Max—”
“My God, of course I want you!”
“It isn't that I am angry. I am not even jealous. I was at first. It isn't that. It's hard to make you understand. I think you care for me—”
“I love you! I swear I never loved any other woman as I love you.”
Suddenly he remembered that he had also sworn to put Carlotta out of his life. He knew that Sidney remembered, too; but she gave no sign.
“Perhaps that's true. You might go on caring for me. Sometimes I think you would. But there would always be other women, Max. You're like that. Perhaps you can't help it.”
“If you loved me you could do anything with me.” He was half sullen.
By the way her color leaped, he knew he had struck fire. All his conjectures as to how Sidney would take the knowledge of his entanglement with Carlotta had been founded on one major premise—that she loved him. The mere suspicion made him gasp.