At this time of which I write his mind was a chaos; angry love, wounded pride, broken hopes, all raged together, and made him unlike himself.
It was deeply wounding to his pride that people should speak of him. He had hitherto deemed himself above the reach of gossip, and it was not pleasant now to know that he was a continued subject of conversation.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW THE LOVE STORY ENDED.
There is no limit to the suffering of a proud man. Every wondering look, every word rankled in Sir Ronald’s mind.
“People wonder why you do not get married,” said his friend, Captain Pierson, to him one day. “They tell a story about you here that I, for one, do not believe.”
“What is it?” asked Ronald, with well-assumed indifference.
“Hardly worth repeating; some absurd story of a hopeless love. They were discussing you at Leighton Grange last night, and one bold spirit, bolder than the rest, declared that you had a profound and hopeless attachment to—guess whom?”
“I would not trouble myself to guess,” he replied, with well-acted indifference, although his changed face might have bade the speaker beware of raising the Alden temper.
“Of course, I knew it was untrue,” said Captain Pierson. “I said you were not the man to love in vain, and that Lady Hermione Lorriston, beautiful and gifted as she is, could not look down upon Sir Ronald Alden.”
Sir Ronald laughed, but the demon of angry pride was strong within him.