I stood long with the letter in my hand.
“Well, it’s best,” I muttered at last, “and I thought he would do it. He’s my friend still, thank heaven, for he says so. But, oh, Jason, your debt is accumulating!”
CHAPTER XXIV.
LOST.
The week that followed was a sad and lonely one to me. My romance was ended—my friend parted from me—my heart ever wincing under the torture of self-reproach.
As to the first, it would seem that I should have no great reason for insuperable regret. The situation had been made for, not by me; I was free to let my thoughts revert unhampered to the object of my first and only true love.
That was all so; yet I know I brooded over my loss for the time being, as if it were the greatest that could have befallen me. Such is human inconsistency. So he who, vainly seeking some large reward, condescends half-disdainfully to a smaller, is altogether disproportionately vexed if the latter is unexpectedly denied him.
I went about my work in a hopeless, mechanical manner that only scarcely concealed the bitter ache my heart endured. Occasionally, at rare intervals, I came across Dolly, but formally only and never to exchange a word. Furtively glancing at her when this happened, I noticed that she looked pale, and, I thought, not happy, but this may have been nothing but fancy, for my hasty view was generally limited to half-profile. Of me she took no heed, desiring, apparently, the absolute close of our old intercourse, and mere pride precluded me from making any further effort toward an explanation.
Would that even then I had been wise or noble enough to force the barrier of reserve. God knows but I might have been in time to save her. Yet maybe my attitude was not altogether unjustified. To put me on the footing of a formal stranger was heavy punishment for a fault committed under motives that were anything, at least, but base.
With Duke my intercourse was confined to the office and to matters of business. He showed no unfriendly spirit toward me there and no desire for a resumption of our old terms. He never, in public or private, touched upon the subject that was nearest both our hearts, or alluded to it in any way. If I was conscious of any melancholy shadow towering between us it was not because he sought to lend to its features the gloom that must be enwrapping his own soul.
At last the week ended, and the silence, that had lain black and ominous as a snake along it, was awakened and reared itself, poisonous for a spring. Yet its voice spoke up musical at first.