Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/82

 Suddenly he laughed; it was a man's laughter, deep, rollicking. She had cost him more than a quarter of a million; she had driven him into far jungles, up mountain-tops, across the seven seas. Never would he quite forget those dreadful nights, the brushwood fires, and yon serene face peering at him from the embers. And he hadn't really loved her, and she hadn't loved him, and she was going to marry Captain the Honorable George Wickliffe!

Some of the women around Betty's tea-table lifted their heads. Each had a singular interpretation for that laughter:


 * "He couldn't laugh like that if he still loved her,"


 * "What a rollicking noise! I thought at first that he might still be in love with her."

Armitage chuckled all the way back to the hotel. Six years gone to pot, a fortune lost, all for some one he hadn't cared about. He now understood the true significance: he had, like many another, fallen in love with love. He was free.
 * "Now, I wonder what started that?"