"Not night after night," she answered. "If you remember, there were often long intervals. But I have told you, I was constantly alone. The house is large, none of the servants sleep near my room, and my husband—"
"Your—what?" the Tenor demanded, turning round on his chair to face her, every vestige of colour gone from his countenance, yet not convinced. "What did you say?" he repeated, aghast.
"My—husband," she faltered. "Mr. Kilroy, of Ilverthorpe."
Hitherto, he had uttered no reproach, but she knew that this reticence was due to self-respect rather than to any lingering remnant of deference, and now when she saw his face ablaze she was prepared for an outburst of wrath. All he said, however, was, speaking with quiet dignity: "You need not have allowed that part of the deception to go on. You should have told me that at once; why did you not?"
For the first time Angelica lost her presence of mind. "I—I forgot," she stammered.
The Tenor threw back his sunny head and laughed bitterly.
"It is a curious fact," Angelica remarked upon reflection, and as if speaking to herself, "but I really had forgotten."
The Tenor looked at the fire, and in the little pause that ensued Angelica suddenly lost her temper.
"If you are deceived in me you have deceived yourself," she burst out, "for I have tried my utmost to undeceive you. You go and fall in love with a girl you have never spoken to in your life, you endow her gratuitously with all the virtues you admire without asking if she cares to possess them; and when you find she is not the peerless perfection you require her to be, you blame her! oh! isn't that like a man? You all say the same thing: 'It wasn't me!'"
"What will your husband say?" the Tenor ejaculated in an undertone.