Now, he thought, he would be rewarded for the long
waiting; the endless siege to this marvellous woman who concealed
her real nature beneath that marble casing of an assumed
indifference.
He waited eagerly for her answer. When it came it shocked and
revolted him.
Ethel dropped her gaze from his face and said, with the suspicion of
a smile playing around her lips:
"If you had the right to make love to me straightforwardly--you
wouldn't do it."
He looked at her in amazement.
"What do you mean?" he gasped. "It's only because you haven't the
right that you do it--by suggestion," Ethel pursued.
"How can you say that?" And he put all the heart he was capable of
into the question.
"You don't deny it," she said quietly.
He breathed hard and then said bitterly:
"What a contemptible opinion you must have of me."
"Then we're quits, aren't we?"
"How?" he asked.
"Haven't YOU one of ME?"
"Of YOU? Why, Ethel--"
"Surely every married man MUST have a contemptible opinion of the
woman he covertly makes love to. If he hadn't he couldn't do it,
could he?" Once again she levelled her cold, impassive eyes on
Brent's flushed face.
"I don't follow you," was all Brent said.
"Haven't you had time to think of an answer?"
"I don't now what you're driving at," he added.
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