“Ah, no. He refused and said it must not be. But he told Jack that he hated the thought of going to Mentone or any such place alone. My father is too unhappy about him to be his companion, and Jack must go to Oxford. So, when I told him how the wish of my heart was to show him my Spanish home, he owned that he should like to see it. The climate will not cure him if he is dull and miserable.”
“Certainly you must go with him,” said Virginia steadily, though she felt half suffocated.
“Ah, mi reyna!” cried Alvar, his brow clearing; “you see my trouble. Without your approval I could not go!”
Virginia turned round and fixed her eyes on Alvar with a look never seen before under their soft fringes. The sharp agony of personal loss and disappointment, the feeling, horrible to the gentle modest girl, that the loss and the disappointment reserved all their sting for her, the outward necessity of the proposal, and the inward knowledge that Alvar wronged her by his feeling, though not by his act, drove her to bay at last. She would have shared in any sacrifice, but she instinctively knew that Alvar was making none. The vague dissatisfactions, the dim misunderstandings, the unacknowledged jealousies of many months, all rushed at once into the light. Her love was too passionate to be patient, and her self-control broke down at last.
“Yes,” she said, “of course you must go with your brother. I see that. I admit it quite. But—Alvar—that’s not all. I have seen for a long time that our engagement was a tie to you—it was a mistake. I don’t blame you—you did not understand—but it is better to end it. I release you—you are free!”
“Señorita!” cried Alvar, flashing up, “I have given no one the right to doubt my honour. You mistake me.”
“No,” said Virginia, “I do not mistake. I know—I know you mean rightly—I ought not to wonder if you don’t—if you don’t—” she broke off faltering and trembling, humiliated by the sense that she had not been able to win him.
But Alvar’s pride had taken fire. “I am at your service,” he said proudly, “since you mistake my request.”
“I will not hold you back one day,” she answered. “Nor do I blame you. Don’t mistake me. You have done all for me that you could; but our ideas are different, and I feel convinced we should only go on making each other unhappy. It is better to part.”
“Since it is your wish to have it so,” said Alvar in a tone of deep offence, but with a curious pang at his heart. “I was your true lover, and I would never have caused you grief. But since I did not satisfy you, I withdraw. I force myself on no lady.”