“Sit down, Gwen, sit down at once.”
He drew up the chair to her. “The situation seems a curious one,” he said at last, “this outbreak seems to be the climax to a long course of morbid thinking.”
“You cannot understand,” she said faintly.
“I confess I cannot, altogether. When you married me you were no ignorant girl—”
“Humphrey,” she cried, her eyes absolutely burning on him, “I did not think that I should have to defend myself to you in this! I thought you would know the absolute ignorance of girls. It is no veiled ignorance, it is absolute, or else a mere vague—”
“Dear, it was a cowardly and an unjust reproach. However, things have now come to a head with us, it is no use delaying, you want, I gather, a separation?”
She started.
“I thought I would like to go home for a time—alone.”
For a minute Strange considered. “This is no time for softness or entreaty,” was the result of his reflections.
“We need have no legal separation, Gwen—as yet,” he added, with slow emphasis.