It has happened. Best One, I don't quite know what is going to become of me. There has been the most awful row. It was with Dick, and Sir Lionel doesn't know about it yet, and we are supposed to be going away in a few minutes; but maybe Dick is talking to Sir Lionel now, and if he is, I don't suppose I shall be allowed to proceed in the company of virtuous Emily and (comparatively) innocent Gwendolen. I shall probably be given a third-class ticket back to Paris, and ordered to "git."
It's rather hard that, having sacrificed so much, large chunks of self-respect among other things, it should all come to nothing in the end. Ellaline will want to kill me, for I have thrown her to the lions. It won't be my fault if they don't eat her up.
Oh, darling, I do feel horribly about it, and really and truly, without exaggeration, I would have died sooner than repay her kindness to me by giving her away like this. An ancestress of yours in the Revolution ran up the steps of the guillotine laughing and kissing her hands to the friends she left in the tumbril, and I could have been almost half as brave if by so doing I might have avoided this dreadful abandoning of Ellaline's interests, trusted to me. But what can you do between two evils? Isn't it a law of nature, or something, to choose the lesser?
Dick went just the one step too far, and pulled the chain too tight. He had begun to think he could make me do anything.
A little while ago, I was alone in the armoury, absorbed in looking at a wonderful engraving of the tragic last Earl of Derwentwater, when suddenly Dick came up behind me. I wanted to go, and made excuses to escape, but he wouldn't let me; and rather than have a scene—in case anyone might come—I let him walk me about, and point out strange old weapons on the wall. That was only a blind, however. He had something particular to say, and said it. There was another thing I must do for him: find a way of informing Sir Lionel, prettily and nicely, that Mrs. Senter cared for him, and was very unhappy.
I flew out in an instant, and said that I'd do no such thing.
"You must," said he.
"I won't," said I. "Nobody can make me."
"Oh, can't they?" said he. "I can, then, and I mean to. If you refuse to do it, I shall believe you're in love with Sir Lionel yourself."
"I don't care what you believe," I flung at him. "There's no shame in saying I like Sir Lionel too well and respect him too much to have any hand in making him miserable all the rest of his life."