was commonplace
in me that I felt slightly outraged at his lack of spirit.
Perhaps he guessed what was in my mind, for he said:

"I couldn't expect her to love me as I loved her.
I'm a buffoon. I'm not the sort of man that women love.
I've always known that. I can't blame her if she's fallen
in love with Strickland."

"You certainly have less vanity than any man I've ever known,"
I said.

"I love her so much better than myself. It seems to me that
when vanity comes into love it can only be because really you
love yourself best. After all, it constantly happens that a
man when he's married falls in love with somebody else;
when he gets over it he returns to his wife, and she takes him
back, and everyone thinks it very natural. Why should it be
different with women?"

"I dare say that's logical," I smiled, "but most men are made
differently, and they can't."

But while I talked to Stroeve I was puzzling over the
suddenness of the whole affair. I could not imagine that he
had had no warning. I remembered the curious look I had seen
in Blanche Stroeve's eyes; perhaps its explanation was that
she was growing dimly conscious of a feeling in her heart that
surprised and alarmed her.

"Did you have no suspicion before to-day that there was
anything between them?" I asked.

He did not answer for a while. There was a pencil on the table,
and unconsciously he drew a head on the blotting-paper.

"Please say so, if you hate my asking you questions," I said.

"It eases me to talk. Oh, if you knew the frightful anguish
in my heart." He threw the pencil down. "Yes, I've known it
for a fortnight. I knew it before she did."

"Why on earth didn't you send Strickland packing?"

"I couldn't believe it. It seemed so improbable.
She couldn't bear the sight of him. It was more than improbable;
it was incredible. I thought it was merely jealousy.
You see, I've always been jealous, but I trained myself never
to show it; I was jealous of every man she knew; I was
jealous of you. I knew she didn't love me as I loved her.
That was only natural, wasn't it? But she allowed me to
love her, and that was enough to make me happy. I forced
myself to go out for hours together in order to leave them
by themselves; I wanted to punish myself for suspicions
which were unworthy of me; and when I came back I found they
didn't want me -- not Strickland, he didn't care if I was
there or not, but Blanche. She shuddered when I w