My Darling Love
Chapter 31 – From the Frying Pan to the Fire
"A little neglect may breed great mischief."
-Benjamin Franklin
George once told John the only question he would ever consider foolish was the one not asked. Keeping this in mind, George asked Mary, "What will it take for me to get back the trust I once had with you?"
Mary was helping him reassemble his things in the hall closet and did not reply. She was not giving him the silent treatment -- they had engaged in many conversations since he moved out, but none of substance regarding their impasse. Mary really needed to think it through, so she was quiet for the rest of the time she worked. With his personal effects neatly folded away in drawers and hung on hangers, she took him by the arm and led him into the room they once shared together. With the door closed and the subjects of the castle locked out, Mary answered with two words, "The truth."
They stood before one another for what seemed like forever, not speaking, just staring at each other. George bent in awkwardly for a kiss. He would have been satisfied with her cheek, but when she offered her lips with her eyes closed, he could not contain the passion that flared within him, long forgotten. He clutched her by her shoulders and drew her tightly to his body and kissed her deeply. Mary consented to him willingly at first, but then withdrew and folded her mouth in, "I need time, more time," she whispered as she moved from his embrace.
Seeing the questions in his eyes, she continued, "When you touch me, I see her. I see you holding her and kissing her, and making love to her. I just can't be with you that way again, I'm sorry. You can stay here, for this is your home, and we can be married. I'll never ask for a divorce, George, but I can't force myself to feel something for you that is lost forever because of another. It is too painful to remember what it was once like between us. I'm sure one day I will trust you again, and maybe even forgive you. I love you, I will always love you, and I'll never stop. But her face, her perfect face is embedded in my memory, and until it fades into the shadows, we can never be what we were." Mary choked on her tears, trying to compose herself by sitting down in their bed.
Mary saw Vivian only once in Paris that she remembered. George sat playing cards and an enticing young girl with blonde hair practically fell into her husband's lap as he won the last hand. "My niece Vivian, no worries to you Mary. She may look twenty-five, but she's only sixteen, and I'm sure George knows better," Auntie Eve assured her.
Mary sat on her bed as tears filled her eyes. She held her head as if it ached while George sat beside her.
Never having a chance to explain himself or his actions against his family, he took this opportunity to speak his mind. "You ask for the truth, Mary, and here it is as best I can explain. You keep me trapped in a game of unfair play. I will in no way ever tell you that what I did was my right as a man, but I will tell you that, at times, as a man, you left me no other choice. You were so absorbed in the children's lives that you left no room in your heart for me.
"There was once a time and place that only belonged to you and I, that we shared with no other. As our babies grew, you replaced me in those precious moments, moments I needed you the most, with the children. I tried to tell you many times, and you would not listen. When I was with Vivian, I made no attempt to hide what I was doing, because I think, in a way, I wanted to get caught. And I did, your father knew, Aunt Millicent knew, even John found out. You were totally oblivious in your own world, moving from day to day in the illusion that I was just as content as you were, when I told you many times I was unhappy in your neglect."
"I knew that you were having affair from that first night, George, I'm not stupid. I could see it in your face when you came home," Mary offered as the first tear rolled down her smooth cheek.
"Still, you said nothing to me?" he asked, his voice nearly breaking. "You never confronted me or made any attempt to win me back. You just let me go and put it out of your mind. And now you blame me, and it is of course my fault for straying to another, but not entirely. I never loved her, nor did I ever make love to her. The fornication we engaged in was purely physical. There was never an emotion behind it, only a racing to the finish to simply pleasure myself. It was infrequent, but I will not lie and say it only happened once or twice."
"How many times?" Mary asked, as the floodgates of her eyes opened, and tears fell freely.
"Do you truly want to know?"
She nodded quickly, "I can guess or you can just tell me, George, it will hurt no matter what, so let be over now and quickly."
"I never counted, but it was more than we were having. It was very difficult for me to behave that way with two people at the same time, you and Vivian. The act was so dissimilar between you both that no comparison can be made. I did not have to concern myself with her completion, and that was a relief. If you did not receive enjoyment, did not walk with me in ecstasy, I would feel like a failure toward you, not only as a husband but also as a man. As I was the only one you ever were with, there is a performance standard I sometimes find demanding to live up to. In a corner of my mind, I wish you had other men, that way you could understand the difference between making love with someone you want to spend the rest of your life with and having sex with someone you wouldn't care if you never saw again."
"And the gifts and the dinners and the parties..." Mary urged him to go on.
He sighed, sorting through his jumbled thoughts and impressions. "I felt it was only fair that if you were living in a fantasy world, then ... why couldn't I? Away from the house, away from the children, away from the responsibilities, I could pretend to be someone else. The man I was in Paris. The man I wished I were before I was married -- where money was no object and I could wine and dine a lovely young lady and shower her with presents. Not the woman you will wed, just someone who loves your money and your company. A learning experience, if you will, Mary, gaining the invaluable ability to differentiate between real love and lust. You were never available, and she was. You were always too busy to spend time with me, and she had all the time in the world. That in no way excuses what I did, but I do owe you some explanation, however poor it may be."
George spoke the truth. As Mary sat there on her bed, his words vividly called to mind all the times she'd told him, "Not now, George, I'm busy," or, "Maybe later, George, not now." It seemed "now" was never the right time and "later" never came, even after her years of saying it. She saw that she had been the one who had the excuses, "I am too tired after dealing with the children all day," or, "The children will hear us." She knew that the children were at school all day, so who she was "dealing with" was anyone's guess. And as far as the children overhearing, that was easily avoided by waiting only an hour after the children went to bed, instead of racing up the stairs to her own bedroom behind them.
The excuses now rang in her ears: "The children are jealous of the attention I give you George, we must stop being so affectionate around them...The children are angry because I hurry them at night to go to bed so we can be together, I must spend more time with them after supper...The children are hurt because I went to the market with you George, instead of them, I must take them from now on...The children don't want me to go out tonight with you, George, so I must stay home..." She now recalled countless other changes she required him to make in their home "for the children," changes George had no part in, all true.
Mary knew of his affair, she'd heard the gossip at the grocer and the intimate details from her own friends who had seen him around. "She's very pretty, Mary, you'd better watch out, and he seems very taken with her. They passed me on the street on the way into the sweets boutique, and when they came out she was feeding him strawberries dipped in chocolate, that they shared when they kissed." Mary smelled the perfume on his clothes, always the finest French. She knew the bank closed at six and no one ever stayed late, "There are no assistants to the assistant, Mrs. Darling, and business hours are business hours." If George put on French cologne in the morning, that meant when he left before breakfast, he was meeting his mistress. "No time to eat Mary, got to dash, early meeting." She washed Vivian's lipstick from his handkerchief when she did the laundry, and saw his seed dried on his underwear. Mary had eaten lunch with her friends and read his name reserving a table later in the evening. The florist delivered flowers to the wrong address on many occasions when no one else was home but Mary, and always the card read, "Thank you for the lovely afternoon, George..."
True it was never signed with "love", but signed nonetheless in George's hand. That was all her fault. Instead of growing together as their children grew older, they grew apart. Mary had her schedule and she kept to it, making no concessions for anyone other than her three children. She would not include him in anything she planned, and went on through the weeks and months and years, spending little to no time with him, just as a couple. He had asked her many times to go out to dinner, or to a play, or for a walk in the park and always her answer was the same, "Who will watch the children?" They were old enough to watch themselves, and because they were such well-behaved children, George and Mary never had trouble finding someone to look in on them. But Mary still refused to be parted from them, terrified that they would once again run away to Neverland and she would lose them forever.
George was ensnared in her web with no other outlet -- than one -- of escape. And he escaped -- into the arms of another more eager to be at his side and in his bed and outside his house, assigned there by his brother Peter who, like always, had his own ulterior motives. A most unfortunate situation caused by a lack of communication and bad timing now left George and Mary sitting next to one another on their bed, pondering this dilemma of great importance. What they were to decide on this night would be the foundation for the rest of their lives, for as those vows taken in the night with God watching, "until death parts us" still held true.
God was looking down from heaven, as He always did where George and Mary were concerned, and He decided that this night was to be their own. If the truth was what Mary needed, and undivided attention was what George desired, then so be it. After all, what God hath joined together let no man put asunder.
Wendy knocked first and informed her parents she would be spending the night over her best friend's home. Next came John who, along with Michael, was going to Uncle Harry's to keep him company, feeling badly for him, now that George was back at home he was to be alone again. Grandpa Joe had already left and was traveling with his sister to a small town on the outskirts of London to retrieve Margaret, Millicent's wayward daughter.
Now they were alone in their home with no one else but themselves. With the front door closed and locked, they continued their discussion. First Mary would ask the questions and George would answer with the truth.
"How did it begin George?"
"You said you were aware, must I retell it?" Not the brightest beginning if there was to be a future, so George raised his hand and requested a "do over" of sorts. "Right after Christmas, I know you told me not to invite my brother Peter for the holidays, but I felt guilty not extending him the invitation. He never responded, so I just assumed that meant no, but a week after the New Year, he sent me a telegram at the bank that invited me and only me, to dinner with his wife and his niece. It was the same night as Sir Edward's New Year's party, and since you refused to go, I went to dinner with my brother and his family.
"Mary, you must understand I was bitter about your abandonment, I had a little too much to drink, and it had been so long since we had last... She was a temptation I found impossible to resist, especially when she persisted. It happened with her for the first time that night. I never meant for it to continue, for I was terrified you would see it on my face when I returned home, but at least that night, you paid no attention to my face, let alone my foul."
"And then?"
"And then she came to see me the next day at work. The gentlemen who work around me complimented me on my lovely lady friend. I was so excited to have a companion that other men longed for other than you, and she said she wanted me and only me, so I agreed to see her again. I told her of my marriage and my children, and my intentions towards them, and she promised to never make a scene and to hold her tongue regarding our relations."
"Your 'intentions towards your family,' what does that mean?"
"I told her that I would never leave my wife or family, and they could never be put in circumstances where they would become aware. I told her it would kill you, and the children would never forgive me. I told her it was never to be about love or falling in love, it was only about an itch that needed scratching, which is what she called it. I told her whatever we did meant nothing to me." George and Mary sat side by side with their eyes on each other, and held each other's hands.
"It meant nothing to you, and yet you were eager to pay so much for it, how interesting," she said with a tiny frown.
"Strange of you to think of something's cost, but you are correct. And so it began once or twice a week. We went to dinner and parties, we spent time with my brother and his wife, engaging in things that I could not even put into words for fear that I would get sick just calling them to mind. I made the grave error of telling her I loved her once while we were busy in that way, but it was not meant for her, but you, and I swear on my life that what I say is true. I even said your name."
"You called her Mary while you were making love to her?"
"I was not making love to her, I was riding on top of her as if she were a horse, and yes I said your name, because when I closed my eyes when we together, I thought of you and wished ... I wished it was you." His last phrase choked from him with a sob. George's words were soft and loving, he delivered each blow as gently as he could to his wife.
Mary just stared at him, unmoved by his remorse, her words were matter of fact and spoken with no emotion. It was a shameful confession George was making that needed further clarification. "You didn't want me in that way, Mary, and that hurt me. You didn't want me in any way, Mary, and it was painful. The constant rejection was stifling and I couldn't breathe. I needed to breathe. With her I had air, and when I returned home to you I felt strangled again. That is why it continued."
"Why did it end? Because of John?"
"No, it ended because of that night with Michael. That night that we made love, for those few hours I was the only one you wanted. You lay in my arms and told me this is where you wanted spend the rest of your life." He closed his eyes, remembering his ecstasy and her words. "You told me that my name would be your dying breath. You told me I was the only man that you would ever love, and that as much as you loved the children, even if it didn't seem true, I was still the most significant person in your life and you were living your life just for me. That my touch alone made your heart beat, and if ever you went one day without the kiss I leave in the corner of your mouth, your soul would surely flee your body in search of it. And then you thanked me for having patience with you where the children and you attentions towards them were concerned..."
It was word for word what Mary had told him, and still the next day he left her without the kiss. They both cried now, and for the first time they let their eyes fall.
"After that, I was never intimate with Vivian again. I tried on several occasions to end it, but she was relentless in pursuing me. She even went so far as to tell me she thought I had given her a child, and that is where John comes in, but you know more of that than I."
Mary rose from the bed and walked to the window. This was the part that almost killed her, and as she repeated the details of her favorite son's encounter with his father's mistress, she could not bear to look at George.
"John had been kept late at school with his professor on Wendy's birthday. He also missed dinner, and was passing by the hotel you and that girl went to. He saw you leave with her on your arm. After you parted, you went up the street and out of sight; he still waited because he wanted to see for himself that what he had heard in his circle of friends was true. She recognized him, as he looks just like you, and approached him, introducing herself. She informed our son that the relief you received when her delayed monthlies returned was a false semblance of certainty. She had in fact been with child, but lost it under circumstances beyond her control. At the time John told me, it was only her word to him, but after my homecoming from America, I was given a letter from her that assured the same. She told me not to worry about a scandal, because she would have sought a way rid herself of it, and she was thankful that was not necessary. I lied to John; I looked straight in the eye and called her a treacherous liar. And then I lied to him again after I read her confession and said what she told him in the street that day was untruth meant only to hurt him. Of all that is between us, this is only thing the children must never know. Do you understand?"
Mary turned to him and he wept inconsolably. For his crimes against her and his family, for a child created in lust that his mistress would have risked death to relieve herself of. "You know, George, the night of Michael's salvation and change, I had a revelation myself. Margaret sat before me at the kitchen table and told me she threw herself down a flight of stairs in hopes of miscarriage so as she would not be forced to face the consequences of her actions, while the man put that baby inside of her had not a care in the world. I thought back to when I discovered I was carrying Wendy without a wedding ring on my finger. Never once did I throw myself anywhere, nor did I even think it possible to remove something God put inside of me. I prayed every night and every morning, and sometimes at lunch that she'd be blessed with our beauty and God should keep her in my belly as long as she needed to arrive perfect and healthy. And when she was born, when all our children were born, I loved them just because they were yours. Yours and mine together, bonded in one soul forever. What troubles me the most is that, as sacred as is a child's creation, to know that a part of you will live on in another, why you would want that woman, a woman you claim meant nothing to you, why would you let her have the honor? To me, that alone proves that you loved her."
Now there was silence. A piercing silence that was painful on the ears and mind. A stalemate was reached and no one wanted to speak.
Mary stood by the window and watched her husband. George stared straight ahead and watched nothing. She was waiting for him to speak, but he feared her response would be hostile, and that the cause he was so valiant in conquering would be lost on a technicality.
"She told me it was not necessary to practice preventing a child because, as an infant she had suffered with measles." Just as he feared, Mary inhaled and exhaled deep and quick, her rage imminent.
"IN MY MIND IT WAS YOU..." He was the first to raise his voice to make sure a point was received. It was. Mary fell to her knees. "I would close my eyes and see you. I would touch her and think of you. I would buy gifts for you, pick out things you liked, things you wanted. But you didn't want them; you'd scoff at the expense just as I taught you to. So I gave them to her. I would sit across from her at dinner and ramble on about work, and the children and house and your father, and I would never look at her because I didn't want to see her. I wanted to see you; I wanted to see you looking at back at me. She would constantly have to tell me her name was Vivian and not Mary, because my sentences would begin and end with your name. I never let her talk, and always interrupted her because I couldn't stand the sound of her voice; it just reminded me that she was not you. God forgive me for saying this, and I hope I burn in hellfire on Satan's lap for all eternity, but if I had found out she was carrying my child, I would have ripped it out of her body myself."
George collapsed on the floor. He had wanted Mary kick him while he was down and even told her to. The thought never crossed her mind, and she lay down beside him and touched his face. "And you can watch from God's bosom," he whispered through his tears.
"Watch what, George?" Mary choked through her own tears.
"Watch me burn in hell, Mary."
"If you were in hell, George, I would save you. A thousand demons could not keep me from you. I would defeat them all and return you to heaven on a chariot of my love where you belong." Mary smoothed the hair from George's face and kissed his hands. "I love you, George Darling, I always have and I always will. I never stopped. I'm sorry that I was not there when you needed me, and I'm sorry that you suffered, and are suffering now. I wish that we could just start over again, when we were young, and change the hardships and struggles. I wish there was a way to erase the wrongs and only celebrate the good times. I guess that's what marriage vows are for. It all makes sense now, doesn't it?" Mary looked past her husband and off into the past, the night they spoke words of commitment and made Wendy.
"For richer for poorer, we've done that. In sickness and in health, we've done that too. In good times and in bad, we have good times, and we've had bad times. Love one another, honor one another, forsake all others, we have done all that. Promise to be true to one another and never take another except each other...with my body, I thee worship"
"That is the vow I broke," George said, gazing at his wife. He held her hand where her wedding ring was placed and touched it with his finger. After all these years together, there was a never a day she was without it.
"Forsaking all others, that is the vow I broke. I made the children more important than you and cast you aside." She now imitated his actions and touched his ring. "Did you wear this when you were with her?" He nodded. "To remind you to come home?" she asked.
"I no need no reminder of you, Mary, for we are one in the same. I wore it to remind her that there could only be one love in my life, and that is you. What do you want to do now?"
"We have honored all our vows but one, till death parts us. Should we throw away all the years we have spent together because we were both too blind to see and too deaf to hear? Or do we hold true to our promise and listen when the other talks and see when the other is in need?" Mary leaned her head into George's shoulder and rested her lips on his neck.
"What of our broken vows? Can you forgive my adultery?" George would now have his turn to ask the questions.
"I can forgive your adultery, as long as you can forgive my neglect."
"Can you ever trust me like you once did?"
"I trust you like I once had already. I'm not going to lie to make myself feel better, like I did when you were with that woman. I told myself I was imagining it, or if I pretended it was not happening it would just end by itself. I have to admit; it was just as much my fault as it was yours. It was my fault for ignoring your needs, and your fault for being weak." Mary shook her head as she called him "weak," the sound of her voice fell off into distaste as she looked past him.
"You think of me as weak?"
God sighed in frustration, looking downward, "This close, we were THIS CLOSE--!"
"Yes, George, on one measure I do. Again I will concede that you did attempt to rectify the situation between us long before it came to what it was, and I would not compromise, but that does not excuse your betrayals in the personal manner. You had no right to share intimately with anyone else what is mine. We are both to be punished on that merit. I am no longer the only woman you have been with, and forever I will always remember there was another."
"Would you have married me if there were others before you, Mary?"
"Were there?" Mary pulled her head back, curious if there was something more of her husband she was yet to discover.
"No, you were my first. I thought it quite obvious on our first encounter. And I am sure I have reassured you of that fact throughout the years."
Mary moved back to her position resting on her husband, "And that is to be no more."
"My father was a better man than I, he never cheated on my mother. He told me." George moved his arm to give Mary some comfort for her head, and she accepted, still without smiling.
"Yes, I know, she told me too. But your mother lived his life and never one of her own. Not to mention if he ever did cheat, she threatened to cut off his manhood while he slept." Mary sighed, annoyed, still not free of them, the Darling family of the past, while George mildly smirked.
He knew Mary wanted the tone to remain serious before it became familiar. "It is important, Mary, that we do not just settle things the way they are. We must work for a resolution. If I were you, I would never be content with a simple promise it will never happen again."
"Will it ever happen again, George? If I offered you an olive branch and the mercy you begged me for, need I worry that you will be weak and falter whenever a pretty young lady offers you her favor, or when your brother Peter comes calling? Or should I trust what my heart and soul tells me is the truth, that you would rather die one hundred deaths before straying from me again? If I am made to worry, then this is all in vain, and what we are fighting for is already a lost cause." Mary had sat up and looked at George as she spoke.
"What of my worries? What will happen when you fret over John when he leaves for University, and Wendy when she marries, and Michael with whatever path he follows? And my brother Peter, what does he have to do with this? You cannot blame him, Mary, where the fault is mine." George rose as quickly when she addressed him, and now he sat up as well, face to face with her as he replied.
Mary responded, "They are grown up now, well, almost. When John goes to university, he will be a man. Wendy is already a young lady with a mature mind. Michael was grown up at fourteen. The neglect you accuse me of was not deliberate. They had run away, I had lost three of my children in one night; do you know what that does to a mother? They were once inside my body, and I carried them with me everywhere. When they were delivered, it was my voice that soothed them when they cried, for my voice was all they had heard. I watched them sleep, I cleaned their wounds when they fell, and I dried tears and wiped bums. I bathed them, I dressed them, I fed them, and I worried after them. What if a stranger stole them? What if a buggy hit them? What if they choked on their supper? What if they got sick and I could not heal them? What if God called them back to heaven and I never got a chance to say good-bye? What if I had to bury them in the cold ground and live on without them after knowing them for so long? Not that all my years of hard work would be in wasted, but more so that a part of me would die with them.
"Penny told me once to have a child is to accept that forever that a part of your heart would walk outside you body. Never a truer word was spoken. So when they returned, my sole purpose in life became to make sure they were never lost again, and that is why I failed you. And George, had Peter not sent you word when he was town, you would have never gone looking for him. Well, actually, you did. You wrote to him after you promised me you wouldn't. You told me you were to leave him in the past where he belongs. So there again you lied to me, and you lie to me now, right now by telling me he had no hand in your affair." As Mary responded to her husband she grew nasty and catty in her statements. The last remarks regarding Peter came with an indescribable tone of hatred that George had never heard pass from her lips.
"I didn't lie to you about Peter, Mary, and that is that. I did what I did because I wanted to, and it has nothing to do with him! Don't speak ill of my brother, I never speak ill of your family. And as far as our children, did you think I did not have the same fears? It was my fault they ran away. You should have shared your qualms with me. Instead, you pushed me away. I think you wanted to punish me for the days you missed being their mother. You can be very cruel at times, even if it is not deliberate -- or so you say. I think it was very deliberate and premeditated from the moment you found the window in the nursery open," he declared, and stood up with his hands on his hips fuming mad. "What will my punishment be for my infidelity? Or have I not been punished enough?
"Who are you to accuse me of doing anything deliberately? I did not seek solace in another man's arms, now did I? I didn't lie to you and say the butcher shop is only open on Tuesday evenings. You know, George, you are the not the only one who has been offered the favor of a eager partner." Mary's comment made George jerk his attention to her and she gave him her best smug face with raised brow, she too now standing, hands on her hips.
"And what does that mean, Mary?" George asked.
Mary shook her head, sticking out her lower lip, providing for his approval a performance of "I know something you don't" peek into her wisdom. "I don't know which is worse, my having a variety of fervent suitors, and only wanting the one who won't, or your having only one lover that all the others desire ... and still wanting another -- or, in your case, others."
Mary turned from George and began tidying the bed with him watching, waiting with bated breath for her next proclamation that she was surely to make, for he very much wanted it. And so it came, and just as he wanted, he was finally out of the frying pan, but now most regrettably, into the fire. "I think you were the one who wants to do the punishing now, George, and you are trying to make me feel guilty to cover your ulterior motives of sleeping around." Mary turned back to him and gave him her full interest. "Why did not tell me of your sister-in-law that you also took to bed. Think me not clever enough to find out?"
George also presented his full attention. They had come so close to an outcome, and now, they were deadlocked in a standoff that was to grow increasingly argumentative, destroying all of their hard work, all of the ground they'd gained up to this point.
George stood, his caring disposition evaporating in a hot gust of malevolence and spite, now throwing the first punch, "Did you find out before, during, or after, Mary?"
Mary was very good at confrontations; she had her father's wicked fire that burned when she was provoked. "Well, George, which time? The time with your brother and your lover in the room engaged in their own indecent activities? Or maybe you are referring to the time when you had both your mistress and the whore your brother calls his wife all to yourself. Difficult for me to find out before, I'm not a mind reader, during it would be rather uncomfortable for you, and I'm sure even you would have noticed, so I guess I discovered after. The better question would be how I found out. I think it's rather humorous though, all this time a closet pervert, and most think you a fairy."
George glared at his wife; feeling as though her disrespectful words cut all his ties to her, now she was the enemy in his eyes. Her gentle husband forgotten, the man George kept hidden inside for situations just as these stepped forward. "I know how you found out, I don't have to ask. Apparently you are still deaf, I told I wanted to get caught. You father told me not to bring it into this house lest the queen throw herself out the window. So for now I do have one question, which did you find here when you returned home that day? At least my ears are working; you said you only saw Vivian once in Paris, so I know it was not she. It was most regrettable for you to discover my sister-in-law still lying about, for she could not possibly give you the mildest inclination to your competition. And please don't refer to my brother's wife as a whore; I believe that title has been reserved especially for you."
If Mary and George were in one of Wendy's stories, they would be dressed in suits of armor atop horses carrying jousting lances. They would be riding at one another full tilt, and all at once, they would push forward with full force. Luckily, Mary would be carrying her shield and although there was dent in her breastplate, she was not yet defeated. But before she could draw her sword and engage in battle, she would need one thing clarified before planning her attack. She stepped back and inhaled deeply to regain her composure. "You think me a whore, George?"
"Yes, Mary, as a matter of fact, I do. What else would you call a princess of polite society that lays down for a man while wearing the ring of engagement from another on her finger, and on her wedding day no less."