"
She twisted a fold of her dress, already half-persuaded and yet still a
little doubtful. "But you never gave us a hint that you were married,"
she ventured timidly.
"Honest to God, I forget it myself," he asserted devoutly. "How can a
man be always thinking to tell everyone he meets that he's still in a
legal tie-up, when the only way he can remember it himself is by coming
across his marriage certificate, now and then? Why, it's a good ten
years since me and that woman parted. You don't call that married?"
His positive personality exerted its usual influence over Mrs. Gallito.
"'Course not," she agreed, although she still sat with downcast eyes and
pleated her dress.
"I'm a pretty lonely man," pathos in his voice, "and I'd kind of gotten
into the way of putting home and happiness and all like that away from
me; and then I came here and saw Pearl," he was sincere enough now, "and
honest, Mrs. Gallito, it was all up with me then, right from the first
minute, and I was so plumb crazy about her that I guess I lost my head.
I knew all the time that I ought to tell you and her just how I was
fixed, I knew it, but, someways, try as I would, I couldn't. I didn't
have the nerve, so I just waited and let the cards fall as they would.
Maybe I was a fool and a coward. The way things have turned out, it sure
looks like I was, but I just couldn't help it."
"I guess you ain't any different from most men," she answered, weakly
sympathetic, "but you see Pearl has her notions, and they're mighty
strong ones.
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