"Good heavens, no!" he cried. "Meg, how could you think it?"
"Life is strange," Meg said, a little wearily. "When everything seems most beautiful, some ugliness shows its head . . . the light gets so dim."
"Dearest," Mike said, "do you remember what you said on that morning when we found each other again? You said, 'Let's go forward; things are explained.'"
"Yes, I remember," she said, and as she spoke happiness shone in her eyes like a flame relit; "yes, I said regrets were foolish, I said I understood. But . . ." she hesitated; the thought of Mike's lips pressed to any other woman's than her own stifled her. She was his so completely, that any other man's lips pressed to hers, except Freddy's, would nauseate her. Yet Mike had kissed Millicent. Was it that night on the terrace, or the evening at the Pyramids? she wondered.
"We have gone forward, Meg. Millicent"—Meg shivered as he said the woman's Christian name—"was splendid at the Pyramids, she really was."
Again Meg shivered. Splendid! How, she wondered, had she been splendid? Meg hated being an inquisitor, yet she had to know; it was her right.
"Then it was not at the Pyramids that you kissed her?" she asked.
"No, no!" Mike said. "Of course not!" He looked at her in wonder.
"If it had been, I should not have dared to kiss you to-night."
"It's nice of you to say that, dear. Oh, Mike," she said tenderly, "you mean the world to me! I shall grow older by years for each moment that we don't trust one another! I should have known, I should never have doubted! You've chosen a very jealous woman, Mike."
"If you'd gone off to the Pyramids with some one whom I disliked as much as you dislike Millicent, I'd have been furious!" He felt Meg shiver. He divined the reason; he would not let that hurt her again. "You hate her, Meg," he said. "Just in the way I'd hate a man who . . ." he paused.