“You are making love this morning?” she said in a gay voice. Yet it seemed to me that in it was a trace of eagerness, shrewdly directed toward a concealed purpose.
“I am going to ask you to go away, Jerry,” she went on timidly, but still smiling.
“Go away? When? For what purpose?” I exclaimed.
“Just go away for me—for my sake,” she answered, straightening her body, raising her head, and looking squarely at me with some of her old strength. “You can go to live in a hotel. You can explain that you are forced to do so for some business reason. You can say that I have gone away.”
She must have seen the flush of my anger, for she raised her hand.
“Don’t!” she pleaded. “I know very well how unreasonable I may seem. But if I have earned any gratitude or respect or love from you, just give me what I ask now and give it to me blindly—without question.”
Her eyes held my own as she said these words and I knew she had cast her spell over me.
“What do you propose to do for these three weeks?” I asked roughly.
“I shall stay in this house,” she answered, spacing her words. “Margaret will stay, too. The rest of the servants I shall send away. But of this I want to be sure—you must not come to find me for three weeks. God only knows what would happen if you did.”
“You are insane!” I cried out, with my hand gripping her round wrist. “It’s that which has hung over us.”