I went back presently and joined the company. I knew that in public I must pay my brother’s wife some attention. To avoid her would be confession. She had quite recovered by this time and was her own malicious self again.
“Do you know, David, that you have neglected me shamefully?” she said aloud. “You were more gallant in Paris.”
I made some lame excuse. I do not remember what I muttered and, avoiding any intimacy, turned the conversation to common acquaintances. I cannot remember a more hideously disagreeable hour in all my life. Not that there was left any flicker of the old infatuation. The image of Bernoline had cleansed the old fever. I looked at Letty and, looking at her, wondered that I could meet her eyes without a tremor. She felt this, I know, and did not like the sensation for, despite the danger of the situation, her voice at times took on the old caressing tone and her eyes sparkled with the desire to entice. Our conversation was necessarily banal in the presence of others. It was not until they started to go that I found myself alone with her on the porch.
“I hope to God you did it because you love him,” I said, without premeditation.
“And if there was any other reason, Davy?” she said softly.
“He is quite capable of killing you. I give you a solemn warning.”
Her fur slipped to the ground and, as I recovered it, she said aloud:
“Thank you, my brother-in-law—and you will be sociable, and run over?”
Ben had come up as we were speaking, but her quick ear had detected his approach.