"You are the
first man I have really truly loved."
She meant it and it may have been true. She said it with sincerity
at least. One usually does. At any rate, it sounded wonderful to
Strathdene and he determined to make her his. He would let England
muddle along somehow till he made this alliance with the beautiful
Missourienne. But Kedzie's plight was again what it had been; she
had a husband extra. In some cases the husband is busy enough with
his own affairs to let the lover trot alongside, like the third
horse which the Greeks called the _pareoros_. But neither Jim
nor Strathdene would be content with that sort of team-work, and
Kedzie least of all.
She and Strathdene agreed that love would find the way, and Kedzie
suggested that Jim would probably be decent enough to arrange the
whole matter. He had an awfully clever lawyer, too.
Strathdene had braved nearly every peril in life except marriage.
He was determined to take a shy at that. He and Kedzie talked their
honeymoon plans with the boyishness and girlishness of nineteen
and sixteen.
Then Kedzie remembered Gilfoyle. She had thanked her stars that she
told Dyckman the truth about him in time. And now she was confronted
with the same situation. Since her life was repeating its patterns,
it would be foolish to ignore the lessons. So after some hesitation
she told the Marquess that Jim Dyckman was not her first, but her
second. She told it very tragically, made quite a good story of it.
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