"We might just as well not be married, if you don't want me," she said.
"Come, come! Mrs. O'Rane!" I cried.
I am afraid that the mild protest only inflamed her.
"Well, he doesn't! The other night we were talking about marriage. Peter Beresford says that any man who loves a woman may do anything to win her; it doesn't make any difference whether she's married or not——"
O'Rane leaned forward and resumed his stroking of the dog's head.
"Perhaps it makes a difference to the woman," he suggested.
"Then David said," she went on, regardless of this interruption, "that men and women weren't justified in spoiling each other's lives by clinging on when one was tired of the other."
Every word was purposefully clear, and at the end she paused invitingly. O'Rane sprang up with a ring of laughter and held out his arms to receive her.
"Sweetheart!"