t with
one another for a single instant. You've done any number of things that
would be wrong to you if I knew about them, but wouldn't be in the least
wrong if I didn't."

"Of course," said Roddy, "no feller tells his wife everything--that
would be absurd. I think things are worse if people know about 'em whom
it hurts to know--_much_ worse."

She was suddenly confronted now with a Roddy whose assurance and
confidence in his own personality startled her. Because he had never
been gifted with words and liked to be in the company of dogs and horses
she had fancied that he had no ideas about anything.

Rachel was a great deal younger than she knew and a great deal more
contemptuous of the other half world than her experience of it
justified. Strangely enough this confidence on Roddy's part angered her
more than anything else could have done.

"The fact is that since our marriage we've never got to know each other
in the least. We talk and go to places together and you give me things
and I give you things--and that's all. I don't know you and now, after
to-day, I can't trust you----"

He coloured a little at that, but said nothing.

She went on, rather fast and her breath coming between her words: "But
I'm not going to be so silly as to make a scene because I saw you
kissing Nita Raseley. She's simply not worth thinking about,--but you
ought to be straighter to me all the way round. If you've wanted to be
kind to me as you say, then you might have taken me more into your
life----"

"Well," said Roddy slowly, "if you'd managed to love me a bit, Rachel,
things might be different."

This answer was so utterly unexpected that it took her like a blow. That
Roddy should attack _her_ when he had, only a few hours before, been
discovered so abominably!

"What do you mean, Roddy?" she stammered angrily. "Love you? But----"

"Yes," he persisted doggedly, "I know when you accepted me you said you
didn't and I know that I hadn't any right to expect it, but I believe if
you hadn't thought me such a silly ass and hadn't looked all the time as
though you were just indulgin' my silly fancies until somethin' more
sensible had come along, things might have been different. I'm the sort
of feller," Roddy said, choosing his words carefully, "that you could
have made anythin' out of, Rachel. I'm weak in some ways--most men
are--and when a thing comes dancin' along lookin' ever so temptin', why,
then I generally have to go after it.