"
"Well, then," he suddenly wheeled round to her, "you'd better have
it . . . I'm married already."
She took that with a little startled cry. Her eyes searched his face
in a puzzled fashion as though she were pursuing the truth. Then she
said like a child who sees some toy broken before its eyes:
"Oh, Martin!"
"Yes. Nobody knows--not a soul. It was a mad thing--four years ago
in Marseille I met a girl, a little dressmaker there. I went off my
head and married her, and then a month later she ran off with a
merchant chap, a Greek. I didn't care; we got on as badly as
anything . . . but there you are. No one knows. That's the whole
thing, Maggie. I thought at first I wouldn't tell you. I was
beginning to care for you too much, as a matter of fact, and then
when your uncle asked me to dinner, I told myself I was a fool to
go. Then when I saw how you trusted me, I thought I'd be a cad and
let it continue, but somehow . . . you've got an influence over me
. . . You've made me ashamed of things I wouldn't have hesitated
about a year ago. And the funny thing is it isn't your looks. I can
say things to you I couldn't to other women, and I'll tell you right
away that there are lots of women attract me more.
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