“She deserves no blame,” said Frank, understanding the manner, though the words were under Rosamond’s breath. “Her very troubles in her own family have been the cause of her erecting a standard of what alone she could trust. Once in better days she fancied I came up to it, and when I know how far I have fallen short of it—”
“Nonsense. She had no business to make the condition without warning you.”
“She knows more of me than only that,” muttered poor Frank. “I was an ass in town last summer. It was the hope of seeing her that drew me; but if I had kept out of that set, all this would never have been.”
“It was all for her sake.” (A substratum of ‘Ungrateful, ungenerous girl.’)
“For her sake, I thought—not her true sake.” Then there was a silence, broken by his exclaiming, “Rose, I must get away from here!”
“You can’t,” she called back. “Here’s your mother coming. She would be perfectly miserable to find you gone.”
“It is impossible I should stay here.”
“Don’t be so chicken-hearted, Frank. If she has a heart worth speaking of, she’ll come round, if you only press hard enough. If not, you are well quit of her.”
He cried out at this, and Rosamond saw that what she called faintness of heart was really reverence and sense of his own failings; but none the less did she scorn such misplaced adoration, as it seemed to her, and scold him in her own fashion, for not rushing on to conquer irresistibly; or else being cool and easy as to his rejection. He would accept neither alternative, was depressed beyond the power of comfort, bodily weariness adding to his other ills, and went off at last to bed, without retracting his intention of going away.
“Well, Terry, it is a new phase, and a most perplexing one!” said Rosamond, when her brother came back with arch curiosity in his brown eyes. “The girl has gone and turned him over, and there he lies on his back prostrate, just like Ponto, when he knows he deserves it!”