Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/338



OU might call it fidelity to type, I suppose," said Crayven, with an odd, twisted smile. "At any rate, there it is. I don't expect it to make any difference to you—why should it? You have your own life—happy, or at least full of interest. You don't need me. I saw that from the first. But if it had been different—good Lord, what a difference!"

"How different?" murmured Teresa.

"Oh, if you had not been bound—really bound—I would have taken you away with me. You would like the life out there—or if not, I'd have gone anywhere, done anything else you liked. I've money enough, and Adela—could shift for herself. I could divorce her any day."

Crayven's eyes gleamed hard and fierce. In emotion, the strain of un-English blood in him came out strongly. He was another creature. The imperious will to live and to enjoy, the unreflective, passionate surge of life, had broken up and swept away all the mask of indifference and control. His face was ten years younger.

Teresa looked at him, fascinated. He set a new world about her. The strange possibilities of life—the fact that all one's life—might have