"
He looked at her long. "I don't understand," he finally said.
"Come on. Let's go back to the hotel."
She walked beside him, making no attempt to break his gloomy
silence. They went up to their room and she sat on the lounge by
the window. He lit a cigarette and half sat, half lay, upon the
bed. After a long time he said with a bitter laugh, "And I was
so sure you were a good woman!"
"I don't feel bad," she ventured timidly. "Am I?"
"Do you mean to tell me," he cried, sitting up, "that you don't
think anything of those things?"
"Life can be so hard and cruel, can make one do so many----"
"But don't you realize that what you've done is the very worst
thing a woman can do?"
"No," said she. "I don't. . . . I'm sorry you didn't understand.
I thought you did--not the details, but in a general sort of
way. I didn't mean to deceive you. That would have seemed to me
much worse than anything I did."
"I might have known! I might have known!" he cried--rather
theatrically, though sincerely withal--for Mr. Spenser was a
diligent worker with the tools of the play-making trade. "I
learned who you were as soon as I got home the night I left you
in Carrolton. They had been telephoning about you to the
village. So I knew about you."
"About my mother?" asked she. "Is that what you mean?"
"Oh, you need not look so ashamed," said he, graciously, pityingly.
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