I am a fool, I know, but I
would have stood the interruption of my work, the loss of any hope of
a Career, if I had been sure you were loyal. I ... I cared for you a
great deal."
He stopped. He had suddenly perceived the pathetic. He took refuge in
anger.
"And you have deceived me! How long, how much, I don't care. You have
deceived me. And I tell you"--he began to gesticulate--"I'm not so
much your slave and fool as to stand that! No woman shall make me
_that_ sort of fool, whatever else--So far as I am concerned, this
ends things. This ends things. We are married--but I don't care if we
were married five hundred times. I won't stop with a woman who takes
flowers from another man--"
"I _didn't_," said Ethel.
Lewisham gave way to a transport of anger. He caught up a handful of
roses and extended them, trembling. "What's _this_?" he asked. His
finger bled from a thorn, as once it had bled from a blackthorn spray.
"I _didn't_ take them," said Ethel. "I couldn't help it if they were
sent."
"Ugh!" said Lewisham. "But what is the good of argument and denial?
You took them in, you had them. You may have been cunning, but you
have given yourself away. And our life and all this"--he waved an
inclusive hand at Madam Gadow's furniture--"is at an end.
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