“Dear Mrs. Wynne, I wanted to see you alone,” she said.
Geoffrey, at this, turning his back, strolled to the window.
Angela’s purpose swiftly put him aside, would not linger; “I won’t wrangle with Geoffrey; besides, he really makes no difference,” she said. “For such a long time I have wanted to see you—ever since that night—but you have been away, and so have I. I have been wretched about that night. I could not bear to think that you misunderstood me so cruelly. I have come to beg you to forgive me. It was presumptuous of me to think for a moment that you would care for what I thought or felt, or that my sympathy could be anything but indifferent to you. It was only a blunder. I did not realize that you disliked me so much.”
Felicia’s amazement struggled between a dim belief and a vivid disbelief. The uppermost feeling came out, but in a dismayed voice, for that half-belief plucked at her—“I think that you have always disliked me—really I do.”
“I have longed to love you!” cried Angela; “longed to love you—if you would let me;” and, as she heard the intolerable beauty of these words, she burst into tears.
Felicia turned her eyes on Geoffrey; his back to the window, he leaned on the window-sill, folding his arms. Stupefied, Felicia’s eyes questioned him, “Shall I believe her? Shall I put my arms around her?” It was her impulse, the quick response of her tenderness to suffering. But under the impulse something strong held her back, something that made it a false one, partaking of the falseness that aroused it; and Geoffrey’s sombre look at her seconded the distrust. She stood silent and helpless.
Angela uncovered her eyes. “Don’t you believe me?” she asked.
“I will try to,” Felicia stammered, “if you will give me time—help me to——“
“You are very pitiless,” said Angela in a voice that had caught back its full self-control. “Very hard and pitiless.”
“What can I do? I cannot trust your affection; really I cannot. That is the truth.”