“You’re lying I expect when you say that.” “Indeed, I am not. I never lie. This letter was evidently the result of temper. She never meant it. It’s a sort of play-acting—all females indulge in it.” “She meant every word. But you’re right, there’s a lot of play-acting about the whole business. She’s been play-acting ever since she was born, and now she’ll damned soon find that’s ended. Life with you won’t be play-acting.” “It will not,” answered Kellock. “I promise her that. But she’s no dreamer. If you’ll be so patient as to listen to me, I’d like to speak a few words for her and myself. That letter is not Medora—not what she is now. She shall say she’s sorry, and write in her present frame of mind, which is very different.” “She’ll be sorry all right. That won’t be a lie anyway.” “I venture to ask you to look ahead, Mr. Dingle. There’s no doubt, owing to one thing and another, you and her wouldn’t have settled down into a happy husband and wife. That’s not to cast any reflection on you, or her either. You wasn’t made for each other as we all thought, myself included, when she took you. But owing to differences of character and such like, she fretted you by her nature, which she couldn’t alter, and you treated her harsh according to your nature, which you couldn’t change. There it was, and her spirit told her you and her must part. She meant to go I solemnly assure you. She’d made up her mind to do that; and finding it was so—that’s where I came in. I thought she was right, for her self-respect and yours, to leave you, and knowing that she would then be free in every real sense, I, who had loved her in the past, felt it was no wrong to you under the circumstances, to love her again. But I’ll say this, and I hope you’ll believe it: if I had thought Medora was wrong, I wouldn’t have taken her part. You’ll remember I spoke to you as an outsider, and only for your good, when you knocked me in the water. I’d no thought of having Medora for my wife till after that happened. But when she made me see clearly she was a martyred creature, then I took a different line. And that’s how we stand.” “Play-acting still,” answered the other. “It’s all play-acting, and a wicked, heartless piece of work; and you know it. And a brainless piece of work too, for all you think you’re such a smart pair. You see I’m calm. I’m not taking you by the scruff of your neck and battering your head against that wall, as I well might do. I may yet; but I’ll answer you first. You knew Medora, and knew she was a mass of airs and graces, and humbug; and you knew me, and therefore you ought to have known, when she said I was a tyrant and a brute, that she was lying. But you fooled yourself and took her word and made yourself believe her, because you wanted her. You lusted after another man’s wife, and all your fine opinions went to hell under the temptation, when you found you could get her so easy.”