“Certainly,” he answered scornfully.
“It’s a lie. . . . And she’s just as much in love with you as you are with her.”
“What d’you mean by that?” he cried, the blood running to his head and his heart beating painfully. He seized her wrists. “What d’you mean, Jenny?”
“D’you think I haven’t got eyes in my head? I saw it that day she came here. D’you suppose she came to see me? She despises me because I’m not a lady. She came here to please you; she was polite to me to please you; she asked me to go and see her to please you.”
“It’s absurd. Of course she came. She was an old friend of mine.”
“I know that sort of friend. D’you think I didn’t see the way she looked at you, and how she followed you with her eyes? She simply hung on every word you said. When you smiled she smiled; when you laughed she laughed. Oh, I should think she was in love with you; I know what love is, and I felt it. And when she looked at me, I knew she hated me because I’d robbed her of you.”
“Oh, what a dog’s life it is we lead!” he cried, unable to contain himself. “We’ve both been utterly wretched, and it can’t go on. I do my best to hold myself in, but sometimes I feel it’s impossible. I shall be led to saying things that we shall both regret. For Heaven’s sake, let us part.”
“No. I won’t consent.”
“We can’t go on having these awful quarrels. It was a horrible mistake that we ever married. You must see that as well as I. We’re utterly unsuited to one another, and the baby’s death removed the only necessity that held us together.”
“You talk as if we only remained together because it I was convenient.”