Your pretence that you do
not know you are alluring is the most captivating thing about you. And
what do you think of doing if I continue to offend you? Do you propose
to desert us--to leave poor Rosalie to sink back again into the bundle
of old clothes she was when you came? For Heaven's sake, don't do that!"
All that his words suggested took form before her vividly. How well he
understood what he was saying. But she answered him bravely.
"No. I do not mean to do that."
He watched her for a few seconds. There was curiosity in his eyes.
"Don't make the mistake of imagining that I will let my wife go with you
to America," he said next. "She is as far off from that as she was when
I brought her to Stornham. I have told her so. A man cannot tie his wife
to the bedpost in these days, but he can make her efforts to leave him
so decidedly unpleasant that decent women prefer to stay at home and
take what is coming. I have seen that often enough 'to bank on it,' if I
may quote your American friends."
"Do you remember my once saying," Betty remarked, "that when a woman has
been PROPERLY ill-treated the time comes when nothing matters--nothing
but release from the life she loathes?"
"Yes," he answered.
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