"Yes. I have had my share of it. But please believe me, Eldred,"--she hesitated,--"I have been as loyal to you in word and deed, all these years, as if I had borne your name, and lived under your roof. In spite of my weakness for edged tools, I have never let any man tell me that he loved me since you told me so yourself, in the dark ages. And if a few have wanted to do so, I could hardly help that, could I?" "No more than you could help breathing or sleeping," he answered with a slow strong pressure of her hand. "I know I ought not to have let Major Garth see so much of me after I saw how it was with him, but--since it's the whole truth to-night--I confess your aloofness hurt me so, that I wanted to see if I could rouse you to a spark of feeling by hurting you back, and I chose the weapon readiest to my hand." "You struck deep with it. Does the knowledge give you any satisfaction?" "It fills my cup of shame to overflowing. Yet,--come to think of things, you did much the same without realising it." "Which makes a vast difference, surely?" "Not to me, _mon ami_. It is only God who judges by the intention; possibly because He never suffers from the action." "Quita! That's irreverent!" "Is it? I'm sorry if it sets your Scottish prickles on end! Are you . . . a very religious man, Eldred?" "I believe in God," he answered simply. A short silence followed the statement. Then Quita spoke. "But you see, don't you, dear man, that I spoke truth. My pain was none the less sharp because you inflicted it unwittingly. It's one of the things people are apt to forget." "Your pain? Before God I never dreamed that any act of mine could give you a minute's uneasiness; though Mrs Desmond . . ." "Don't begin about Mrs Desmond, please!" She drew her hand away with a touch of impatience. "She is everything that is perfect, of course. But I hate her; and I believe I always shall." Lenox turned on his elbow and looked up into her face. "My dear . . . I can't let you speak so of my best friend. We owe her everything, you and I. You shall hear about it all one of these days. And apart from that, she is . . ." "Yes, yes. I can see what she is, clearly enough. A superbly beautiful woman, outside and in, who possesses a good deal of influence over you. I can be just to her, you see, if I am . . . jealous." "Jealous? Nonsense. The word is an insult to her, and to me." She reddened under the reproof in his tone. "Forgive me. I didn't mean it so. I am only afraid that after close intimacy with her you will find--your wife rather a poor thing by comparison. Just the 'eternal feminine' with all an artist's egoism, and more than the full complement of faults." She spoke so simply, and with such transparent sincerity, that again he turned on her abruptly; his smouldering passion quickened to a flame. "Quita . . . you dear woman . . . if I could only make you realise . . . !"