"For my business that I had to carry out in England I needed a wife of
another sort from any woman I knew, or could get to know, in an ordinary
way; she had to be of good birth and education, nice-looking and
pleasant-mannered--if possible with highly placed friends or relatives.
Money didn't matter. I had enough--or would have. I got a lot of answers,
but the only one that seemed good was yours. I felt nearly certain you
were the woman I wanted, so I rigged up a plan. You know how it worked
out."
"Maybe I'm stupid," Annesley said, dry-lipped. "I don't understand yet."
"Why, I thought the thing over, and it seemed to me that married life--if
it came to that--would be easier for both if the man could make some sort
of appeal to the love of romance in a girl. Well, she wouldn't think the
man who had to get the right sort of wife by advertising much of a figure
of romance. So the idea came to me of--of starting two personalities. I
wrote you a stiff, precise sort of letter in a disguised business hand,
making an appointment at the Savoy. When that was done, the writer went
out of your life.
"He just ceased to exist, except that he sat behind a big screen of
newspaper and watched for a girl in gray-and-purple, wearing a white
rose, to pass through the foyer.
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