She drew herself up proudly, and looked at me with a calm dignity.
“You know how, quite involuntarily, I asked him to do what seemed an impossible thing. If he would bring me the casket that belonged to the chest he had given to me, I would listen to his declaration of love, and not until then. Too late I realized that he had taken my words to be a test of his devotion. I was terrified at the encouragement I had unconsciously given him. I had not dreamed that he would take the challenge seriously. And yet I wondered at his earnestness. Any woman would be touched at such faith and courage. Here actually was a man who dared to undertake the impossible! Then I thought of you.”
“Would I do as much? Is that what you mean?”
“I asked myself naturally that. And it seemed fair–I wished you to know what I had said to the duke. I wished you to, because––”
“You wished to apply a similar test to me,” I prompted.
“And so,” continued Jacqueline, very pale, “I threw the whole issue into the hands of fate. I sent for you. I told you that you must also try to find this casket for me. And how did you receive this request? So lightly that the last words you said were these: ‘Perhaps I shall find time to write the legend of the clock as well as to find the casket.’ You failed to realize that the finding of this casket was a real crisis in my life and in yours. You wrote twice, and only the shortest and most unsatisfactory of notes. Not unsatisfactory because you were unsuccessful, but because you were pursuing the search in so negligent a manner. And when, at last, I saw you this morning, you met me with reproaches. You were weary of the search. It was actually degrading you. It was leading you from me.”
She paused, and looked at me imploringly. I was silent.
“You urged me to release you from it. But you wished me to understand that it was only reasonable to do so. I was willing to listen. I wished to understand that so much myself. I was ready to believe it–oh, so glad to believe it. I waited for you eagerly. You failed to wait for me. What was I to think? I do not reproach you for doing too well what I had asked you to do. But, Dick, if you could have done it in a different manner!”
“In a different manner?” I repeated obstinately, though I understood only too well what she meant. “What does the manner signify, so long as the thing is being done, and being done successfully?”
“It signifies to me, Dick,” she insisted gently. “Right or wrong, I have the right to put on the facts just the interpretation that seems to me fair.” She turned to me with sudden passion. “Supposing I was foolish, even heartless, in imposing this test, reckless and foolish in putting my happiness in the hands of fate, yet if it ennobled the one, and degraded, by his own confession, the other, why should I not let the results plead for themselves? Why should I not abide by the decision of fate? You have driven me, you see, in spite of myself, to this question.”