No More Learning

"

But Mrs. Vansuythen, with no heart for explanations or impassioned
protestations, was kneeling over Mrs. Boulte.

"Oh, you brute! " she cried. "Are all men like this? Help me to get her
into my room--and her face is cut against the table. Oh, will you be
quiet, and help me to carry her? I hate you, and I hate Captain Kurrell.
Lift her up carefully and now--go! Go away! "

Boulte carried his wife into Mrs. Vansuythen's bedroom and departed
before the storm of that lady's wrath and disgust, impenitent
and burning with jealousy. Kurrell had been making love to Mrs.
Vansuythen--would do Vansuythen as great a wrong as he had done Boulte,
who caught himself considering whether Mrs.
Vansuythen would faint if
she discovered that the man she loved had foresworn her.

In the middle of these meditations, Kurrell came cantering along the
road and pulled up with a cheery, "Good mornin'. 'Been mashing Mrs.
Vansuythen as usual, eh? Bad thing for a sober, married man, that. What
will Mrs Boulte say? "

Boulte raised his head and said, slowly, "Oh, you liar! "

Kurrell's face changed. "What's that? " he asked, quickly.

"Nothing much," said Boulte. "Has my wife told you that you two are free
to go off whenever you please? She has been good enough to explain
the situation to me. You've been a true friend to me, Kurrell--old
man--haven't you? "

Kurrell groaned, and tried to frame some sort of idiotic sentence about
being willing to give "satisfaction. " But his interest in the woman was
dead, had died out in the Rains, and, mentally, he was abusing her for
her amazing indiscretion.