"Rubbish," he replied, "how many people have read that play? But you're taking me off my point. Men marry widows and, as far as Dick was concerned, Norah might nearly rank as a widow. They say that patriotism died with the war and virginity with the higher education of women. Well, if it did, Archie would be one of those who would make the best of a bad job. I don't mean that he'd sit by, while his wife climbed in and out of other men's beds like the heroines of Mr. Arlen's novels. On the contrary, you've seen he had a pretty short way with the other man. But he never subscribed to the view of the Church of Paul that sex was the only thing that mattered. And in his darkest hour, he had never been able to conquer his love for Norah."
I suggested that her indifference would in the end effect that conquest.
"Indifference?" said Ross quickly. "To run off with a man, when you think your husband ignores you, is not indifference. Any more than it is indifference to load his crime on your guilty shoulders."
"In any case," I protested, "she told you she didn't love him."
"For the time, the tragedy she had brought about had trodden out of her that blend of illusion and realism we call 'love,' leaving her potent for no impulse more romantic than devotion. When she reached home and the horror had receded, her quick-blooded nature would need to twine round some man's heart. She would think more than twice before she looked beyond her husband a second time. And now she knows his strength no less than his weakness. Not a bad basis for love."
The flippancy which Ross affected was momentarily laid aside. "I believe," he said slowly, "I pray, that by now Norah and Archie Sinclair's hearts are so locked together by sympathy, understanding and affection that they can face together the black hours they cannot hope to escape."
"In any case," I said, "he cannot judge her."
"Because he'd killed Dick?"
I nodded.
"So you agree with Archie, that was wrong?"