Then he answered steadily:--
"Yes. That much I may tell you."
She put up her hand and pushed back her hair impatiently from her
forehead.
"I can't understand it . . . I can't understand it," she muttered.
"Dear, must one understand--to love? . . . Can't you have faith?"
His eyes, those blue eyes of his which could be by turns so fierce, so
unrelenting, and--did she not know it to her heart's undoing?--so
unutterably tender, besought her. But, for once, they awakened no
response. She felt cold--quite cold and indifferent.
"No, Max," she answered wearily. "I don't think I can. You ask me to
believe that there is need for you to see so much of Adrienne. At
first you said it was because of the play. Now you say it has to do
with this--this thing I may not know. . . . I'm afraid I can't believe
it. I think a man's wife should come first--first of anything. I've
tried--oh, I've tried not to mind when you left me so often to go to
Adrienne. I used to tell myself that it was only on account of the
play. I tried to believe it, because--because I loved you so.
But"--with a bitter little smile--"I don't think I ever _really_
believed it--I only cheated myself. . . . There's something else,
too--the shadow. Baroni knows what it is--and Olga Lermontof. Only
I--your wife--I know nothing."
She paused, as though expecting some reply, but Max remained silent,
his arms folded across his chest, his head a little bent.
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