His sister turned her weary eyes on him.
“The mail would have sufficed to tell me. Have you come all the way from London to preach me a sermon?”
He had not been so simple. He had a plan as usual.
“You are free now. I suppose that will please you, even if your husband that was, has made off with your money and is about to marry again.”
The three ideas in this pungent little speech sank into her mind one after the other. She was free. How she had agonized over that! And how little it meant to be free, now that the courts had declared it to society! The creases in her mind could not be ironed out by any judge’s decree. When she realized the next step, she remarked hastily, “He has taken only what I gave him.”
“Are you willing to give him your father’s money to enjoy with another woman?”
She had had a vague idea that in giving up her original fortune to her husband she was atoning in part for breaking the contract of partnership. It seemed, however, that he had sought and obtained his own satisfaction, and that her sacrifice was useless.
“He will do what is right,” she protested.
“Do you think this Mrs. Stevans will let him give up what he has got his hands on?”
At the mention of this name her mind swept swiftly back to Chicago, to the night of the reception when the new house was opened. She had introduced Mrs. Stevans to Erard, and Erard had had a good deal to do with her ever since. Singular freak of fate that Erard should be connected with the two women in whom this man of business had sought happiness! Perhaps something would come out later, between these two, and a second scandal follow. She played with her morbid fancy.