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 "And now it's true . . . what she said . . . you've stolen me away from her, Mary. She's made it so. I'm through now . . . I can't go on trying any more."

Still stroking his head, she thought, "He's like a little boy. He's never grown up at all." And she said, "I was so angry, Philip, that I came here. I didn't care what happened; I only thought, 'If she thinks that's the truth, it might as well be, because she'll tell about it as the truth.' I didn't care any longer for anything but myself and you."

His head stirred, and he looked up at her, seizing her hands. "Is that true, Mary?" He kissed her hand suddenly.

"It's true . . . or why else should I be here, at this hour?" He was hopeless, she thought: he didn't live for a moment in reality.

He hadn't even thought it queer of her to be sitting there in his room long after midnight with his head on her knees. And suddenly she thought again, "If I'm his mistress, I can save him from her altogether. Nothing else can break it off forever."

He was kissing her hands, and the kisses seemed to burn her. He was saying, "Mary, I've loved you always, always . . . since the first time I saw you, but I only knew it when it was too late."

"It isn't too late, Philip. It isn't too late."

He was silent for a time, but she knew what he was thinking. He wasn't strong enough to take life into his own hands and bend it to his own will, or perhaps it wasn't a lack of strength, but only a colossal confusion that kept him caught and lost in an immense and hopeless tangle. Until to-night she hadn't herself been strong enough to act, but now a kind of