Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/282

 You felt queer, and so you came home? Why didn't you go to the Martin House?"

"I wanted to come home. Sit down. Have you had anything to eat?"

"No. I don't want anything. I want to know what brought you back here, forty miles. You knew darned well I'd follow you."

"I never thought you would, Tom," she said honestly. "When I left"

"Well?"

"Couldn't you have borrowed a car?"

"And let every damn fool around know my wife had run off and left me! No. I'm going back, as soon as I find out what the trouble is." He was working at his boot. "You're not sick. You weren't sick when you left."

"No," she said quietly.

"Then what was it?" he demanded.

"I think you know."

He glanced at her and his eyes fell. He drew off his boot and sat rubbing his swollen ankle. Her heart was beating wildly.

"If you mean Clare Hamel," he said roughly, "you can forget it. She's always crying on somebody's neck."

"It was yours today, as it happens. She sent for you, and you slipped away and went to her."

"And you followed!"

"No," she said patiently. "I didn't follow you. I hadn't an idea— Has this Clare any call on you, Tom?"

"What do you mean, call? I used to know her. That's all. And since you know so darned much about my meeting her, perhaps you saw that I wasn't making any great fuss over her. Not so you could notice it."

"Then she hasn't any claim on you?"

"No," he said sullenly. "I'm married. She knows it. And that's all there is to it. Look here,"—he was suddenly angry—"what about yourself? You were engaged to Percy when we were married. Have I ever thrown that up to you? I have not."

But he saw that he had trapped himself, and he changed color.