married man. I might excuse you if it
weren't for that if you hadn't known me and hadn't accepted my
hospitality. As for him, there is no need of my talking to him. This is
an old story with him, Suzanne. He has done this with other women before
you, and he will do it with other women after you. It is one of the
things I have to bear for having married a man of so-called talent.
Don't think, Suzanne, when you tell me you love him, that you tell me
anything new. I have heard that story before from other women. You are
not the first, and you will not be the last."

Suzanne looked at Eugene inquiringly, vaguely, helplessly, wondering if
all this were so.

Eugene hardened under Angela's cutting accusation, but he was not at all
sure at first what he ought to do. He wondered for the moment whether he
ought not to abandon Suzanne and fall back into his old state, dreary as
it might seem to him; but the sight of her pretty face, the sound of
Angela's cutting voice, determined him quickly. "Angela," he began,
recovering his composure the while Suzanne contemplated him, "why do you
talk that way? You know that what you say isn't true. There was one
other woman. I will tell Suzanne about her. There were several before I
married you. I will tell her about them. But my life is a shell, and you
know it. This apartment is a shell. Absolutely it means nothing at all
to me. There has been no love between us, certainly not on my part, for
years, and you know that. You have practically confessed to me from time
to time that you do not care for me. I haven't deceived this girl. I am
glad to tell her now how things stand."

"How things stand! How things stand!" exclaimed Angela, blazing and
forgetting herself for the moment. "Will you tell her what an excellent,
faithful husband you have made me? Will you tell her how honestly you
have kept your word pledged to me at the altar? Will you tell her how I
have worked and sacrificed for you through all these years? How I have
been repaid by just such things as this? I'm sorry for you, Suzanne,
more than anything else," went on Angela, wondering whether she should
tell Eugene here and now of her condition but fearing he would not
believe it. It seemed so much like melodrama. "You are just a silly
little girl duped by an expert man, who thinks he loves you for a little
while, but who really doesn't. He will get over it. Tell me frankly what
do you expect to get out of it all? You can't marry hi