“And you positively assure me that this was all—that there wasn’t any one else before, and no one since?”
Stephanie dried her eyes. They were in his private rooms in Randolph Street, the bachelor rooms he had fitted for himself as a changing place for various affairs.
“I don’t believe you care for me at all,” she observed, dolefully, reproachfully. “I don’t believe you understand me. I don’t think you believe me. When I tell you how things are you don’t understand. I don’t lie. I can’t. If you are so doubting now, perhaps you had better not see me any more. I want to be frank with you, but if you won’t let me—”
She paused heavily, gloomily, very sorrowfully, and Cowperwood surveyed her with a kind of yearning. What an unreasoning pull she had for him! He did not believe her, and yet he could not let her go.
“Oh, I don’t know what to think,” he commented, morosely. “I certainly don’t want to quarrel with you, Stephanie, for telling me the truth. Please don’t deceive me. You are a remarkable girl. I can do so much for you if you will let me. You ought to see that.”
“But I’m not deceiving you,” she repeated, wearily. “I should think you could see.”
“I believe you,” he went on, trying to deceive himself against his better judgment. “But you lead such a free, unconventional life.”
“Ah,” thought Stephanie, “perhaps I talk too much.”
“I am very fond of you. You appeal to me so much. I love you, really. Don’t deceive me. Don’t run with all these silly simpletons. They are really not worthy of you. I shall be able to get a divorce one of these days, and then I would be glad to marry you.”
“But I’m not running with them in the sense that you think. They’re not anything to me beyond mere entertainment. Oh, I like them, of course. Lane Cross is a dear in his way, and so is Gardner Knowles. They have all been nice to me.”