“Why, Randal,--it is Mrs. Floyd-Rosney,--Paula Majoribanks, that was, and her husband and child.”
There was still a pause, blank of significance.
“Well,” said Randal, meditatively, at length, “they won’t like that quit-claim paper one little bit of a bit.” There was a laugh in his brilliant hazel eyes, and it touched the finely cut corners of his lips. His fresh face was as joyous, as candid, as full of the tender affection of this reunion as if no word of a troubled past had been spoken to jar it.
Oh, that she should come between them on this day when they were so close to each other, Adrian reflected, when absence had made each so dear, when there was so much to say and to do, when separation impended, and time was so short. He felt that he could hardly endure to have their mutual pleasure marred, that he could not brook to see Randal abashed in her presence, and conscious, disconcerted and at a disadvantage before her husband. Above all, and before all, he winced for Randal’s pain in the reopening of these poignant old wounds to bleed and ache anew.
His arms tightened and slipped up from his brother’s shoulders and around his neck. “Oh, Randal, will it hurt you much?”
Randal looked grave. “A lawsuit is always a troublesome, long-drawn-out bother; I shrink from the suspense and the expense. But I am mighty glad to have the chance to be hurt that way.”
“Oh, I meant will it give you pain to meet Paula again as Mrs. Floyd-Rosney?”
“_What?_” Randal’s hearty young voice rang out with a note of amazement. “Not a bit. What do you take me for?”
“I was afraid--you would feel,” faltered Adrian.
“Is that what’s the matter with you? You look awfully muffish.”
“Well,--as you loved her once,--I thought----”
“That was a case of mistaken identity,” said Randal. “Can’t you realize that it is just because she _could_ prefer another man; that she could think a thought of change; that her plighted faith could be broken; that her love,--or what we called love,--could take unto itself wings and fly away; that she was only an illusion, a delusion, a snare. I never loved the woman she is.”
“She is very beautiful,” hesitated Adrian.
“When I thought her mind and heart matched her face she seemed beautiful to me, too,” said Randal.