“You—you——!” she commenced. Then turned to Alexis with a resumption of her habitual sweetness. “What did I tell you? Was I not right?”
“Keep quiet,” he commanded. “You have made trouble enough for one evening!” He turned to Dr. Elliott. “So you are in love with my wife?”
The other man looked down upon him from his greater height. “I have done you no wrong, Petrovskey.”
Claire raised a white and streaming face.
“Oh Alexis, you do believe him, don’t you?”
He patted her trembling hand, with absent-minded kindliness. “Don’t worry, child. Of course I believe him.”
Robert Elliott grasped him by the shoulder. “You are a real man, Petrovskey. I didn’t know you had it in you!” he exclaimed naïvely.
Alexis’ smile was a trifle awry. “You are wrong, Elliott. If I were a real man, all this would never have occurred.”
His mother interposed herself between them almost savagely.
“All this magnanimity looks very pretty. But what proof have you that they are not lying? I, for one, don’t believe in this blessed innocence. Many a divorce has been granted on less substantial grounds than these!”