No sir! I knew it wasn't on account of the gal! Why, when
you came here to-night and told me quite nat'ral-like and easy how
she went off in the ship, and then calmly ate your pie and drank your
whiskey after it, I knew you didn't care for her. There's my hand,
Spence; you're a trump, even if you are a little looney, eh? Why, what's
up?"
Shallow and selfish as Tucker was, Patterson's words seemed like a
revelation that shocked him as profoundly as it might have shocked a
nobler nature. The simple vanity and selfishness that made him unable to
conceive any higher reason for his wife's loyalty than his own personal
popularity and success, now that he no longer possessed that eclat,
made him equally capable of the lowest suspicions. He was a dishonored
fugitive, broken in fortune and reputation--why should she not desert
him! He had been unfaithful to her from wildness, from caprice, from the
effect of those fascinating qualities; it seemed to him natural that she
should be disloyal from more deliberate motives, and he hugged himself
with that belief.
Pages:
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139