And that's why I understand Owen..." She
broke off, and he felt her touch on his arm. "BECAUSE
I'D DREAMED THE HORROR TOO!"
He understood her then, and stammered: "You?"
"Forgive me! And let me tell you!...It will help you to
understand Owen...There WERE little things...little
signs...once I had begun to watch for them: your reluctance
to speak about her...her reserve with you...a sort of
constraint we'd never seen in her before..."
She laughed up at him, and with her hands in his he
contrived to say: "NOW you understand why?"
"Oh, I understand; of course I understand; and I want you to
laugh at me--with me! Because there were other things
too...crazier things still...There was even--last night on
the terrace--her pink cloak..."
"Her pink cloak?" Now he honestly wondered, and as she saw
it she blushed.
"You've forgotten about the cloak? The pink cloak that Owen
saw you with at the play in Paris? Yes...yes...I was mad
enough for that!...It does me good to laugh about it now!
But you ought to know that I'm going to be a jealous
woman...a ridiculously jealous woman...you ought to be
warned of it in time..."
He had dropped her hands, and she leaned close and lifted
her arms to his neck with one of her rare gestures of
surrender.
"I don't know why it is; but it makes me happier now to have
been so foolish!"
Her lips were parted in a noiseless laugh and the tremor of
her lashes made their shadow move on her cheek.
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