The marriage would come
out, somehow, and then the very natural question would be: 'Why the
devil were they married secretly?' No; you can't keep those things
hidden. And as for Alice, if she didn't think anything else, she'd
think I had fibbed to her. And that would nearly kill her; she has a
perfect mania about truth! You see, it leads up to the same thing:
Alice's discovery that I have been--like most men. No; if it's got to
be, it shall be open and aboveboard."
She gasped with relief; his look of cold annoyance meant, just for the
moment, nothing at all.
I shall tell her that I have met a lady with whom I was in love a long
time ago--"
"_Was_ in love? Oh, Lloyd!" she broke in with a cry of pain; at which
intrusion of sentimentality Lloyd Pryor said with ferocity: "What's
that got to do with it? I'm going to pay the piper! I'll tell Alice
that or any other damned thing I please. I'll tell her I'm going to be
married in two or three months; I shall go through the form of an
engagement. Alice won't like it, of course. No girl likes to have a
stepmother; but I shall depend on you, Helena, to make the thing go as
well as possible. That's all I have to say."
He set his teeth and turning his back on her, threw his half-smoked
cigar into the fire, Helena, cowering on the sofa, murmured something
of gratitude, Mr. Pryor did not take the trouble to listen.
"Well," he said, "the next thing is to get you away from this place.
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