Grayle brought his head forward with a sharp jerk.
"It's her happiness we're considering," he agreed slowly, with his eyes on O'Rane's waist. "I—well, it's for her to say; I obviously can't tell you what will make her happiest, she's the only person who can do that. You've not put forward any case for yourself, I musn't put forward any for myself. She must tell us both whether she's been happy enough these last months to want to go on.... I may say—you haven't attacked me, so perhaps I don't need to defend myself—I may say that, when a woman's unhappily married, I don't regard her as being under any obligation to her husband; she's free to start her life again; and any man is free to share that life, if she sees fit. That—that's my theory, in case you feel there's any question of rights involved."
His tone was becoming truculent, but O'Rane nodded gravely.
"Yes. But we agreed to leave the past alone," he said. "I've knocked about a good bit the last thirty years and I can assure you that I never want to be put on my trial for anything. Let's stick to the future. Do you wish—my wife to go through the Divorce Court?"
I looked at Mrs. O'Rane to see if the offending word would rouse her, but she seemed not to have heard it. The hard composure of her entrance had broken down, she seemed ready to faint with fatigue, and the patches of rouge on cheeks that were grown suddenly white gave her an absurd something of a Dutch doll's appearance. I fetched her a tumbler of soda-water, and her smile of thanks was the first human thing that I had seen about her that night. As she began to sip it, I saw her glance over the brim at Grayle.
"I don't wish it," he said at length. "What—what else is possible?"
"You can say good-bye to her," O'Rane suggested quietly.
Grayle looked up uncomprehendingly; and Mrs. O'Rane's eyes flashed in sympathy.
"Desert her, you mean?"
"It's hardly the word I should have chosen, but we needn't go into that. Colonel Grayle, neither you nor I want a scandal. By the mercy of God, there's only one man outside this room who knows what's been taking place all these months. We've agreed that my wife's happiness is the thing that we're both unselfishly seeking, we won't bandy rights and wrongs or grievances or justifications—we won't even try to put our love for her into a scale. If you give me your word of honour that you'll never see or speak to my wife again, I will take no further steps; I'm not trying to steal her away from you so that I may get her back myself—she must determine her own happiness. You and I can at least spare her the unhappiness, the vulgarity, the morbid, sniggering curiosity of a public scandal. She can live in another part of the house, live away from me, let it be known confidentially that we somehow didn't manage to get on very well together.... Are you prepared to make that sacrifice for her happiness?"