"
"Should I not? I'm by no means sure. You don't understand much of me, my
poor Ban."
"How could you!" he burst out. "Would that have been--"
"Oh, I should have told him, of course. I'd have said, 'Del, there's
been another man, a lover.' One could say those things to him."
"Would he have married you?"
"You wouldn't, would you?" she smiled. "All or nothing, Ban, for you.
About Del, I don't know." She shrugged dainty shoulders. "I shouldn't
have much cared."
"And would you have come back to me, Io?"
"Do you want me to say 'Yes'? You do want me to say' Yes,' don't you, my
dear? How can I tell?... Sooner or later, I suppose. Fate. The
irresistible current. I am here now."
"Io." He leaned to her across the little table, his somber regard
holding hers. "Why did you tell Camilla Van Arsdale that you would never
divorce Eyre?"
"Because it's true."
"But why tell her? So that it should come back to me?"
She answered him straight and fearlessly. "Yes. I thought it would be
easier for you to hear from her."
"Did you?" He sat staring past her at visions. It was not within
Banneker's code, his sense of fair play in the game, to betray to Io his
wonderment (shared by most of her own set) that she should have endured
the affront of Del Eyre's openly flagitious life, even though she had
herself implied some knowledge of it in her assumption that a divorce
could be procured.
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