"Am I then so polluted?" she queried. "At least," slowly stretching out her lithe limbs and looking herself over, "I see no trace of it--neither do I feel it in me."
"Your honor is not sufficiently developed to feel it, there's the pity," he answered. "You will catch another man with the same indifference you forsook me, or were yourself forsaken by Amherst. And your basilisktic beauty will be fatal alike to them and to you."
"One does not need to be a prophet to foresee the apparent," he retorted.
"You had me unpolluted--why did you not keep me so?" she asked. "I was yours, why did you not hold me fast? You could had you tried. If I am as beautiful as you would have me believe, you were not alone in knowing it. Therefore it was for you to guard me; you were my husband--and you did not. Hence you are either faithless or incompetent, so you have only yourself to blame."
"A naturally good woman doesn't have to be guarded," he sneered.
"Which shows how little--how very little--you know!" she smiled. "You are scarcely fit to be out of the nursery, Harry--you need a guardian, not a wife."
"The Divorce Court at least will relieve me of the wife," he retorted--"and I shall not want another very soon."
Two horses trotted quickly around the bend--their riders rising and falling in perfect time. An amused smile broke over Stephanie's face when she recognized Helen Burleston and Devonshire. As they flashed by, the former nodded pleasantly, the latter raised his hat. Their surprised looks, however, were not concealed--nor Lorraine's embarrassed acknowledgment.
"We are creating a scandal--a fearful scandal!" Stephanie laughed. "Husband and wife, about to be divorced, have been caught talking together in a secluded bridle-path in the Park. What can it mean?"
"It can mean anything their imagination may suggest--except the truth!" exclaimed Lorraine. "No one will ever believe it is a chance encounter."
"Thanks," said she. "You do me that much credit, at least."
"Yes; I fancy I may truthfully assume that this meeting is unpremeditated on your part as well as on mine--though you doubtless are expecting some one," he sneered. "Else why are you here?"
"For _once_ you do me an injustice," she replied ironically.