Despite the ache in her heart, she smiled.
"Does it make any difference what Mr. Wing thinks?" she asked gently. "Need he know? Isn't this a matter which concerns us alone? I shall go off, and after a certain time people will understand that I am not coming back."
"But—have you considered that it may interfere with my prospects?" he asked.
"Why should it? You are invaluable to Mr. Wing. He can't afford to dispense with your services just because you will be divorced. That would be ridiculous. Some of his own associates are divorced."
"Divorced!" he cried, and she saw that he had grown pasty white. "On what grounds? Have you been—"
He did not finish.
"No," she said, "you need fear no scandal. There will be nothing in any way harmful to your—prospects."
"What can I do?" he said, though more to himself than to her. Her quick ear detected in his voice a note of relief. And yet, he struck in her, standing helplessly smoking in the middle of the floor, chords of pity.
"You can do nothing, Howard," she said. "If you lived with me from now to the millennium you couldn't make me love you, nor could you love me—the way I must be loved. Try to realize it. The wrench is what you dread. After it is over you will be much more contented, much happier, than you have been with me. Believe me."
His next remark astonished her.