There was no need to tell myself whose voices they were, and neither did
I ask myself any questions. I did not put to my mind the pros and cons
of the case for myself or the case for my husband. I only thought and
felt and behaved as any other wife would think and feel and behave at
such a moment. An ugly and depraved thing, which my pride or my
self-respect had never hitherto permitted me to believe in, suddenly
leapt into life.

I was outraged. I was a victim of the treachery, the duplicity, the
disloyalty, and the smothered secrecy of husband and friend.

My heart and soul were aflame with a sense of wrong. All the sweetening
and softening and purifying effects of the sacrament were gone in an
instant, and, moving stealthily across the carpet towards my husband's
door, I swiftly turned the handle.

The door was locked.

I heard a movement inside the room and in a moment I hurried from the
salon into the corridor, intending to enter by another door. As I was
about to do so I heard the lock turned back by a cautious hand within.
Then I swung the door open and boldly entered the room.

Nobody was there except my husband.

But I was just in time to catch the sound of rustling skirts in the
adjoining apartment and to see a door closed gently behind them.

I looked around. Although the sun was shining, the blinds were down and
the air was full of a rank odour of stale tobacco such as might have
been brought back in people's clothes from that shameless woman's salon.

My husband, who had clearly been drinking, was looking at me with a
half-senseless grin. His thin hair was a little disordered. His
prominent front teeth showed hideously. I saw that he was trying to
carry things off with an air.

"This _is_ an unexpected pleasure. I think it must be the first
time . . . the very first time that. . . ."

I felt deadly cold; I almost swooned; I could scarcely breathe, but I
said:

"Is that all you've got to say to me?"

"All? What else, my dear? I don't understand. . . ."

"You understand quite well," I answered, and then looking towards the
door of the adjoining apartment, I said, "both of you understand."

My husband began to laugh--a drunken, idiotic laugh.

"Oh, you mean that . . . perhaps you imagine that. . . ."

"Listen," I said. "This is the end of everything between you and me."

"The end? Why, I thought that was long ago. In fact I thought everything
ended before it began."

"I mean. . . ." I kn