“Your tears. You were crying over it, weren’t you?”
“She was very unhappy,” I asserted indifferently. “She was married and she loved some one else.”
“Do you really think she did?” he asked. “And even so, was that a reason?”
“The other man cared for her; he may not have been able to help it.”
“But he knew that she was married,” he said virtuously, and then he caught my eye and he saw the analogy instantly, for he colored hotly and put down the book.
“Most men argue that way,” I said. “They argue by the book, and—they do as they like.”
He picked up a Japanese ivory paper weight from the table, and stood balancing it across his finger.
“You are perfectly right,” he said at last. “I deserve it all. My grievance is at myself. Your—your beauty, and the fact that I thought you were unhappy, put me—beside myself. It is not an excuse; it is a weak explanation. I will not forget myself again.”
He was as abject as any one could have wished. It was my minute of triumph, but I can not pretend that I was happy. Evidently it had been only a passing impulse. If he had really cared, now that he knew I was free, he would have forgotten himself again at once. Then a new explanation occurred to me. Suppose it had been Bella all the time, and the real shock had been to find that she had been married!
“The fault of the situation was really mine,” I said magnanimously; “I quite blame myself. Only, you must believe one thing. You never furnished us any amusement.” I looked at him sidewise. “The discovery that Bella and Jim were once married must have been a great shock.”