A Whirl Asunder by Gertrude Atherton

Clive and Rollins exchanged few words on the drive home. Miss Belmont's name was not mentioned. Clive's feelings were mixed. He candidly admitted that his vanity was profoundly at peace with itself, and that Helena Belmont was the most interesting woman he had ever met. Nevertheless, his conscience chattered at his vanity like an angry monkey at a peacock.

"I feel exactly like a delinquent husband," he thought. "Premonitory, I suppose. I have an absurdly married feeling; the result of a long engagement, probably, and a lifelong acquaintance. I wonder if a man ever bothers if the woman is not likely to find him out; I can't say it has ever worried me much before. I suppose it's on the principle that what a woman doesn't know won't hurt her."