"
"Keeping you good friends with me--that 's a great thing. But it 's
nothing to her keeping you good friends with your wife."
Gordon looked at Bernard for an instant; then he fixed his eyes for some
time on the fire.
"Yes, that is the greatest of all things. A man should value his
wife. He should believe in her. He has taken her, and he should keep
her--especially when there is a great deal of good in her. I was a great
fool the other day," he went on. "I don't remember what I said. It was
very weak."
"It seemed to me feeble," said Bernard. "But it is quite within a man's
rights to be a fool once in a while, and you had never abused of the
license."
"Well, I have done it for a lifetime--for a lifetime." And Gordon took
up his hat. He looked into the crown of it for a moment, and then he
fixed his eyes on Bernard's again. "But there is one thing I hope you
won't mind my saying. I have come back to my old impression of Miss
Vivian."
"Your old impression?"
And Miss Vivian's accepted lover frowned a little.
"I mean that she 's not simple. She 's very strange."
Bernard's frown cleared away in a sudden, almost eager smile.
"Say at once that you dislike her! That will do capitally.
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