“You must leave her,” she urged, with a new touch of decisiveness. “You must. Every day is precious with you, Lester! Why don’t you make up your mind to act at once—to-day, for that matter? Why not?”
“Not so fast,” he protested. “This is a ticklish business. To tell you the truth, I hate to do it. It seems so brutal—so unfair. I’m not one to run around and discuss my affairs with other people. I’ve refused to talk about this to any one heretofore—my father, my mother, any one. But somehow you have always seemed closer to me than any one else, and, since I met you this time, I have felt as though I ought to explain—I have really wanted to. I care for you. I don’t know whether you understand how that can be under the circumstances. But I do. You’re nearer to me intellectually and emotionally than I thought you were. Don’t frown. You want the truth, don’t you? Well, there you have it. Now explain me to myself, if you can.”
“I don’t want to argue with you, Lester,” she said softly, laying her hand on his arm. “I merely want to love you. I understand quite well how it has all come about. I’m sorry for myself. I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry—” she hesitated—“for Mrs. Kane. She’s a charming woman. I like her. I really do. But she isn’t the woman for you, Lester; she really isn’t. You need another type. It seems so unfair for us two to discuss her in this way, but really it isn’t. We all have to stand on our merits. And I’m satisfied, if the facts in this case were put before her, as you have put them before me, she would see just how it all is, and agree. She can’t want to harm you. Why, Lester, if I were in her position I would let you go. I would, truly. I think you know that I would. Any good woman would. It would hurt me, but I’d do it. It will hurt her, but she’ll do it. Now, mark you my words, she will. I think I understand her as well as you do—better—for I am a woman. Oh,” she said, pausing, “I wish I were in a position to talk to her. I could make her understand.”
Lester looked at Letty, wondering at her eagerness. She was beautiful, magnetic, immensely worth while.
“Not so fast,” he repeated. “I want to think about this. I have some time yet.”
She paused, a little crestfallen but determined.
“This is the time to act,” she repeated, her whole soul in her eyes. She wanted this man, and she was not ashamed to let him see that she wanted him.
“Well, I’ll think of it,” he said uneasily, then, rather hastily, he bade her good-by and went away.
CHAPTER LI
Lester had thought of his predicament earnestly enough, and he would have been satisfied to act soon if it had not been that one of those disrupting influences which sometimes complicate our affairs entered into his Hyde Park domicile. Gerhardt’s health began rapidly to fail.