“I regret, Claudia, that you should upbraid me for speaking so frankly and for thus consulting our mutual interests,” he said at last, as, crossing to the table and leaning against it easily, he regarded her with a melancholy expression upon his face. “We have been friends for a good many years; indeed, ever since you were a child and I was at college. Do you remember those days, long ago, when at Winchester we were boy and girl lovers? Do you remember?” he went on, advancing to her and placing his strong hand tenderly upon her shoulder. “Do you ever recall those sunny afternoons when we used to meet clandestinely, and go for long walks through the meadows round Abbots Barton in deadly terror of every one we met lest we should be recognised? Do you remember how, beneath the stars that sweet-scented night in July, we swore eternal friendship and eternal love?”
She nodded in the affirmative, but no word passed the lips so tightly pressed together.
“And what followed?” he continued. “We drifted apart, I to Oxford, and on into the world; and you, like myself, forgot. You married the man who was my best friend; but for what purpose? Claudia, let me speak plainly, as one who is still your friend, although no longer your lover. You married Dick Nevill in order to escape the deadly dulness of Abbots Barton and to enter the kingdom of omnipotence, pleasure and triumphant vanity, as a sure deliverance from all future chance of obscurity. You became at once the idol, the leader, the reigning beauty of your sphere. Poor Dick was the slave of your flimsiest caprice; he ministered to your wishes and was grateful for your slightest smile. He died—died while you were away enjoying yourself on the Riviera—and I—”
“No!” she exclaimed wildly, rising to her feet and covering her face with her hands in deep remorse. “No, Dudley! Spare me all that! I know. My God! I know—I know, alas! too well! I never loved him!”
“Then if you regard our folly in a proper light, Claudia,” he said earnestly, with his hand placed again upon her shoulder, “you will at once see that my decision is for the best.”
“You intend to leave me?” she asked huskily.
“It is the only way,” he replied with a catch in his voice. “We have courted scandal sufficiently.”
“But you cannot cast me off, Dudley?” she cried, suddenly springing towards him and wildly flinging her beautiful arms about his neck. “You shall never leave me, because I love you. Are you blind? Don’t you understand? Don’t you see that I love you, Dudley?”
“You loved me once, in those old days at Winchester,” he said, slowly disengaging himself from her embrace. “But not now.”
“I do!” she cried. “I swear that I do! You are jealous of all those men who flatter me and hang about me wherever I go; but I care nothing for the whole crowd of them. You know me,” she went on; “you know that I live only for you—for you.” Her words did not correspond with the sentiments she expressed to the woman who had accompanied her to his chambers. He reflected for a moment; then he said: