"
"Good heavens, how extraordinary! And what became of Gertrude? Were
you never her lover?"
"Never. We abstained while waiting for the yacht. Then she fell in
love with somebody else; she married her lover; and now he deplores
her; she found an excellent husband, and she died in his arms."
At every moment I expected Doris to ask me how it was that, for the
sake of writing a book, I had consented to go away for a six months'
cruise with a woman whom I didn't love. But there was a moment when I
loved her--the week before Lincoln. Whether Doris agreed tacitly that
my admiration of Gertrude's slender flanks and charm of manner and
taste in dress justified me in agreeing to go away with her, I don't
know; she did not trouble me with the embarrassing question I had
anticipated. Isn't it strange that people never ask the embarrassing
questions one foresees? She asked me instead with whom I had been in
love during the past five years, and this too embarrassed me, though
not to the extent the other question would have done. To say that
since I had seen Doris I had led a chaste life would be at once
incredible and ridiculous. Sighing a little, I spoke of a
_liaison_ that had lasted many years and had come to an end at
last.
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