Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/216

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Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman


spell of a little chorus-girl; it is less funny when you have to fight for your life to preserve your husband and the father of your child. Some form of madness that overtakes men. . . I have not told you, I never shall tell you what Arthur was like when he found that this girl had thrown him over at the last moment. Dazed. . . His behaviour to me seemed of no account; the fact that I knew everything from the girl’s own lips and had helped to pack the clothes in which he was to run away with her. . . He was like a man in a trance. . .

I uttered no word of reproach. It was imnecessary. At first he behaved as if the light had gone out of his life—which was pleasant for me; then he seemed to realize that perhaps some amends were owing to me. . . Assented immediately to my proposal that we should go right away. . .

I chose Menton because Sir Appleton Deepe was there. He, I fancy, would be the first to tell you that I really made him. Unheard-of before the war, except in business. . . I wanted his advice about Will: where he could lay out his talents to greatest advantage, as it were; and, though nothing has been decided definitely, I have a promise, and he is most anxious to meet Will. . . So one’s time was not wasted. . . And there, in the peace and wonderful sun-

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