"No--at least...." She could not go on. Micky had given it to her, she knew, but she would have bitten her tongue through rather than have told this man.
It had been Micky all the time--Micky....
She thrust the thought of him from her; she did not want to think of him now. There would be plenty of time later on; plenty of time when she had shaken off the last rag of the past.
"It cost a pretty penny, whoever bought it," he said sulkily. "What else has he given you? If you can take presents from him you can't refuse to let me see you sometimes, and after all--you did love me once.... Esther, do you remember the way you cried that last day?"
"Yes," she said mechanically, "I remember; I remember everything."
"You loved me well enough then," he reminded her moodily. "You didn't behave like an iceberg then, Lallie, and I'm not really changed; I'm the same man I was--I care for you just as much----"
She felt as if she had so much time mapped out before her during which she must put up with this man's society; as if each moment were another inch torn in the rags of disillusionment which had got to be destroyed thoroughly before she could ever hope to gather up the broken threads of her life again.
"I'm not the only married man who sometimes forgets that he is no longer a bachelor," he said detestably.
He laid an arm familiarly along the back of her chair. He touched her chin with his fingers.
She moved back, the hot blood rushing riotously over her face. She was white no longer; she looked like a marble Galatea suddenly brought to life.
Raymond Ashton laughed, well pleased. He was confident that he had not lost his power over her. For the moment his appalling vanity blinded him to the fact that it was not love in her eyes, but scorn.
"What are you thinking, Lallie?" he asked her.
She sat very straight and stiff in her chair.
"I am thinking," she said, "how impossible it seems that I can ever have thought that I cared for you." Her voice was low but very clear, and he heard each word distinctly. "I am thinking that you are the most contemptible thing I have ever met in my life--I am thinking how sorry I am for the woman who is your wife."
"Would you like to hear any more of my thoughts?" she asked.