That's what I said all along. When folks--specially women
folks--wondered how you could leave a woman like your wife, and go off
with a scallawag like that gal, I allers said they'd find out there was
a reason. And when your wife came flaunting down here with Poindexter
before she'd quite got quit of you, I reckon they began to see the
whole little game. No, sir! I knew it wasn't on account of the gal!
Why, when you came here to-night and told me quite nat'ral-like and
easy how she went off in the ship, and then calmly ate your pie and
drank your whiskey after it, I knew you didn't care for her. There's my
hand, Spence; you're a trump, even if you are a little looney, eh? Why,
what's up?"
Shallow and selfish as Tucker was, Patterson's words seemed like a
revelation that shocked him as profoundly as it might have shocked a
nobler nature. The simple vanity and selfishness that made him unable
to conceive any higher reason for his wife's loyalty than his own
personal popularity and success, now that he no longer possessed that
_eclat_, made him equally capable of the lowest suspicions.
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