"Considerate, Miss Mary! It is not so easy for me as it is for you to slap people's faces. And you see now, that I have the courage to show myself, as well as you to receive me."
The last was ambiguous, with the purpose of hearing whether she believed in his motive for breaking the engagement.
"Did you believe that I feared you?" asked she and took a stitch with her needle.
"I did not know how you would take my explanation, although I thought I knew that the sorrow which it might cause you would be easily consoled."
There lay something in the words "easily consoled," which seemed to cut the girl as an allusion to the young consoler, but neither of them seemed to have the desire to betray themselves; one feared to show jealousy, and the other was anxious to learn, if he had seen anything.
The girl, who had sat at her work, now looked up to read the expression in the face of her opponent and observed with a wonder which she could not hide the many orders on the lapel of his dress coat. And with a childish pettishness, which only hides envy, she sneered:
"How fine you are!"
"I shall be so at the ball!"
The girl's face twitched, twitched so terribly that the commissioner felt the reflection of her pain and took hold of her hand at the same moment that she broke out with a terrible cry. And when he leaned towards her, she drew her head towards his chest and cried, so that she shook as in a fever.
"Child!" the commissioner said soothingly.