“I know that.” Then, after a brief pause he added, “I may appear a brute, a silly fool and all the rest, but I tell you, Frank, I’ve acted for the best.”
“I can’t see it.”
“No, I don’t suppose you can, old chap,” he answered. “But you will entirely agree with my course of action some day ere long.”
His words puzzled me, for they seemed to contain some hidden meaning.
“Are you absolutely certain that you’ve no further love for Lil?” I inquired.
“Absolutely.”
“And you are likewise equally certain that it is not the personal charms of Mary Blain which have led you to take this step?”
“I’m quite certain of it,” he answered. “You once loved Mary, remember, but broke it off. Surely we are all of us at liberty to choose our own helpmate in life?”
“Of course,” I responded. “It was not, however, my fault that we parted. Mary was infatuated with another.”
“That just bears out my argument,” he went on. “She didn’t love you, and therefore considered herself perfectly justified in her attachment with your rival. I don’t love Lil.”