“Mr. Bertie! Marion, what does this mean?”
He stared at me incredulously, and then I saw a look of amazement and suspicion come into his face, which had grown suddenly red as with rage.
“Good God!” he cried. “Do you mean you don’t care for me any more? Then you must be in love with someone else.”
“Reggie,” I sneered, “don’t try to cover up your own falseness by accusing me. You pretend to love me, and yet after all these months when you get back, you do not come to me, but go to see other women (I was guessing) and men.”
I ended with a sob of rage, for I could see in Reggie’s face that my surmises were correct. He, however, exclaimed:
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” And before I could move, he had seized me impulsively in his arms and was kissing me again and again. I never could resist Reggie once he got his arms about me. I always became just as weak as a kitten and I think I would have believed anything he told me then. I just melted to him, as it were. He knew it well, the power of his strong arms about me, and whenever he wanted his way about anything with me he would pick me right up and hold me till I gave in. After a moment, with me still in his arms, he said:
“It’s true I was with men and women, but that was not my fault. There’s such a thing as duty. I had no pleasure in their society. I was longing for you all the time, but I had to stay with them because they are influential people, and I want to use them to help me—us, Marion.”
“Who were those women?” I demanded.
“Only some friends of my family’s. They had a box at the theatre, and there was young Eaton, of course, and his sister and a cousin. They bored me to death, give you my word they did, darling. Come, come now, be good to your tired old Reggie.”
I was glad to make up with him and, oh! infinitely happy to have him back. The great oceans of water that had been between us seemed to have melted away. Nevertheless, he had planted a feeling in me that I could not entirely rid myself of, a feeling of distrust. Like a weed, it was to grow in my heart to terrible proportions.