“You’re going to spoil me! And you don’t know how much I want to be spoiled.”
“You poor dear! I’m going to love petting and spoiling you!”
Instantly it occurred to her that the other woman, the unknown wife of her frequent conjecture, had neither petted nor spoiled him and that this accounted for his eagerness for a new experience. A cloud crossed the bright heaven of her happiness. His wife was not to be relegated to oblivion merely because he had found another object for his affections. The wife had a very real existence in Grace’s imagination; to Trenton’s lightly limned sketch the girl had added a line here and there until she fancied she possessed a very true portrait of Mrs. Trenton. Somewhere there existed a Mrs. Ward Trenton, who wrote books and lectured and otherwise advertised herself as a vital being.
“Dear little girl!” said Trenton tenderly. “You are all the world to me. Do you understand?”
“I must believe that,” she said.
“There’s nothing I can offer you now—neither a home nor the protection of my name. It’s got to be just love that’s our tie. I’m not going to deceive you about that.”
“Yes, I understand what it means,” she answered.
“You must believe that I’ll do the best I can to make you happy. Love that doesn’t bring happiness is an empty and worthless thing. You don’t know how much I count on you. I’m laying a burden on you; I’m clutching at you for all the things I’ve missed out of my life.”
“Yes; I know dear.”
“There’s something not fair about it—about casting myself upon you as I’m doing,” he said doggedly.