“And you think I will let you go at a word?”
“I think you will let me go,” he said, “because you are not a fool, Mary. You know as well as I do that you might be ‘my lady’ at too high a price. I’m not the most manageable of men. I’d make a decent husband, all being well. But I’m not meek and I’d make a very unhandy husband malgré moi.”
The threat exasperated her. “I know this at least,” she retorted, “that I would not marry you now, if you were twenty times my lord! You have behaved meanly, and I believe falsely! Not to-day! You are speaking the truth to-day. But I believe that from the start you had this in your mind, that you foresaw this, and were careful not to commit yourself too publicly! What I don’t understand is why you ever asked me to be your wife—at all?”
“Look in the glass!” he answered impudently.
She put that aside. “But I suppose that you had a reason!” she returned. “That you loved me, that you felt for me anything worthy of the name of love is impossible! For the rest, let me tell you this! If I ever felt thankful for anything I am thankful for the chance that brought me to your house to-day—and brought me to the truth!”
“Anything more to say?” he asked flippantly. The way she was taking it suited him better than if she had wept and appealed. And then she was so confoundedly good-looking in her tantrums!
“Nothing more,” she said. “I think that we understand one another now. At any rate, I understand you. Perhaps you will kindly see if I can leave the house without annoyance.”
He looked into the street. Dusk had fallen, the lamplighter was going his rounds. Of the crowd that had attended Mary to the house no more than a handful remained; the nipping air, the attractions of free beer, the sound of the muffin-bell, had drawn away the rest. The driver of the gig was moving to and fro, now looking disconsolately at the windows, now beating his fingers on his chest.
“I think you can leave with safety,” Audley said with irony. “I will see you downstairs.”
“I will not trouble you,” she answered.