“I know Sanders; he’s Tommy’s lawyer. I see I’ll have to keep an eye on Moore,” he went on teasingly. “I’m not sure he isn’t likely to become a dangerous rival!”
“I wish I were sure you could be jealous! Maybe I’m jealous too! Hasn’t that ever occurred to you?”
She was a little frightened at her temerity in asking a question that was the crystallization of her constant speculation as to his attitude toward his wife. There flashed through her mind everything he had said of Mrs. Trenton, which, to be sure, was very little though the little required clarifying. She recalled the apology in his St. Louis letter for having spoken of Mrs. Trenton at all. In that first talk at The Shack he had led her to believe that his wife gave him wide liberty to do as he pleased; but it was conceivable that a woman might indulge her husband’s acquaintance with women she did not know and was not likely to meet without sanctioning infidelity. Grace had persuaded herself that there was a distinct difference between entering into a liaison with a man who still maintained martial relations with his wife and one who did not. She was vastly pleased with the moral perception that showed her this. And she was confident that she had the will to dismiss him if his explanation of the modus vivendi that existed between him and his wife should prove to be unsatisfactory.
The cowpath they were traversing made it necessary for them to walk singly and he went ahead, holding back the boughs that hung over the trail. For a few minutes she thought he meant to ignore her question but suddenly he stopped and swung round.
“I know what you’re thinking of,” he said quietly. “You’re thinking of Mrs. Trenton.”
He pulled a twig from a young maple and broke it into tiny bits. Grace wondered whether this trifling unconscious act might not symbolize the casting aside of such slight ties as bound him to his wife.
“Yes, I’ve thought of her a great deal. You couldn’t blame me for that.”
“No; that’s wholly natural,” he said quickly. “You wouldn’t be the woman I know you to be if you didn’t. You have a right to know just what my relations are with my wife. I’ll be frank about it. I loved her when I married her and I believe she loved me.”
There was an appeal for sympathy in his eyes, a helplessness in his tone that was new to her knowledge of him. It was as though the thought of Mrs. Trenton brought a crushing depression upon him. Jealousy yielded to pity in her heart; she was touched with something akin to maternal solicitude for his happiness. But she wished to know more; the time had come for an understanding of his attitude toward his wife and of Mrs. Trenton’s toward him.
“Does love really die?” she asked almost in a whisper. “If you two loved each other once how can you tell whether the love is dead or not?”