“Yes. Truly. And I’d hate you both forever.”
“Betty Raleigh is going to marry some one else.”
“No! I thought—people said—Are you sorry, Ban?”
“Not for myself. I think he’s the wrong man for her.”
“Yes; that would be a change of the earth underfoot and the sky overhead, if one cared,” she mused. “And I said they didn’t change.”
“Don’t they!” retorted Banneker bitterly. “You are married.”
“I have been married,” she corrected, with an air of amiable rectification. “It was a wise thing to do. Everybody said so. It didn’t last. Nobody thought it would. I didn’t really think so myself.”
“Then why in Heaven’s name—”
“Oh, let’s not talk about it now. Some other time, perhaps. Say next time we meet; five or six months from now.... No; I won’t tease you any more, Ban. It won’t be that. It won’t be long. I’ll tell you the truth: I’d heard a lot about you and Betty Raleigh, and I got to know her and I hoped it would be a go. I did; truly, Ban. I owed you that chance of happiness. I took mine, you see; only it wasn’t happiness that I gambled for. Something else. Safety. The stakes are usually different for men and women. So now you know.... Well, if you don’t, you’ve grown stupid. And I don’t want to talk about it any more. I want to talk about—about The Patriot. I read it this morning while I was waiting; your editorial. Ban”—she drew a derisive mouth—“I was shocked.”
“What was it? Politics?” asked Banneker, who, turning out his editorials several at a time, seldom bothered to recall on what particular day any one was published. “You wouldn’t be expected to like our politics.”