If you would leave me, or I would leave you, you would get all of a million and a half.
Don't you think you had better leave me now?"
She had not intended to propound this leading question so quickly, but it came out as a natural climax to the situation.
She realized instantly that if he were really in love with her he would answer with an emphatic "no."
If he didn't care, he would hesitate, he would delay, he would seek to put off the evil day of reckoning.
"I don't see that," he retorted irritably.
"I don't see that there's any need for either interference or hasty action.
What I object to is their coming here and mixing in my private affairs."
Jennie was cut to the quick by his indifference, his wrath instead of affection.
To her the main point at issue was her leaving him or his leaving her.
To him this recent interference was obviously the chief matter for discussion and consideration.
The meddling of others before he was ready to act was the terrible thing.
She had hoped, in spite of what she had seen, that possibly, because of the long time they had lived together and the things which (in a way) they had endured together, he might have come to care for her deeply—that she had stirred some emotion in him which would never brook real separation, though some seeming separation might be necessary.
He had not married her, of course, but then there had been so many things against them.
Now, in this final hour, anyhow, he might have shown that he cared deeply, even if he had deemed it necessary to let her go.
She felt for the time being as if, for all that she had lived with him so long, she did not understand him, and yet, in spite of this feeling, she knew also that she did.
He cared, in his way.
He could not care for any one enthusiastically and demonstratively.
He could care enough to seize her and take her to himself as he had, but he could not care enough to keep her if something more important appeared.
He was debating her fate now.
She was in a quandary, hurt, bleeding, but for once in her life, determined.
Whether he wanted to or not, she must not let him make this sacrifice.
She must leave him—if he would not leave her.
It was not important enough that she should stay.
There might be but one answer.
But might he not show affection?
"Don't you think you had better act soon?" she continued, hoping that some word of feeling would come from him.
"There is only a little time left, isn't there?"
Jennie nervously pushed a book to and fro on the table, her fear that she would not be able to keep up appearances troubling her greatly.
It was hard for her to know what to do or say.
Lester was so terrible when he became angry.
Still it ought not to be so hard for him to go, now that he had Mrs. Gerald, if he only wished to do so—and he ought to.
His fortune was so much more important to him than anything she could be.
"Don't worry about that," he replied stubbornly, his wrath at his brother, and his family, and O'Brien still holding him.
"There's time enough.
I don't know what I want to do yet.
I like the effrontery of these people!
But I won't talk any more about it; isn't dinner nearly ready?"
He was so injured in his pride that he scarcely took the trouble to be civil.
He was forgetting all about her and what she was feeling.
He hated his brother Robert for this affront. He would have enjoyed wringing the necks of Messrs. Knight, Keatley & O'Brien, singly and collectively.
The question could not be dropped for good and all, and it came up again at dinner, after Jennie had done her best to collect her thoughts and quiet her nerves.
They could not talk very freely because of Vesta and Jeannette, but she managed to get in a word or two.
"I could take a little cottage somewhere," she suggested softly, hoping to find him in a modified mood.
"I would not want to stay here.
I would not know what to do with a big house like this alone."
"I wish you wouldn't discuss this business any longer, Jennie," he persisted.
"I'm in no mood for it.
I don't know that I'm going to do anything of the sort.
I don't know what I'm going to do."