“And some one suggested,” continued Jacqueline dreamily, “that it would be interesting for one to apply this test. It would be a test of love. If the man really cared, he would undertake even the impossible.”[impossible.”]
“So you applied this interesting test to me!” I exclaimed.
“When, some weeks ago,” she went on, “you told me that you loved me, I could not help remembering that conversation at the luncheon. You did not put yourself in the most favorable light. You confessed that you had been living only to please yourself. You acknowledged that you had no ambition, and no energy to fulfil an ambition.”
“That I had no ambition before I met you, Jacqueline,” I interrupted.
“To apply such a test to you would be childish, I thought then. But I did suggest that you should do something. In the meantime,” she added very slowly, her chin resting on her clasped hands, “Duke da Sestos came into my life. He, too, professed to love me.”
“I see. You saw in him the manly traits you found lacking in me. He was ambitious; I was not. He was bold and confident, while I was only too conscious that I had made rather a muddle of my life so far. I can imagine that the contrast between us was not favorable to me.”
She looked at me pleadingly.
“Do not make it too hard for me, Dick. The duke interested me, I confess it. I liked him. Perhaps I even admired him. Every day I saw something of him. He was untiring in his devotion. I began to wonder, at last, if he did not really love me.”
“Had you never been sure that I really loved you, Jacqueline?” I asked sadly.
“No; not sure,” she answered steadily. “How could I be? You neglected me. You went to Rome without excuse. You did not even write to me. And then the duke asked me to be his wife, and this in spite of every discouragement I could throw in his path. For if I admired him, I was careful not to show him that.”