"On my solemnest word of honor, on my awful love for you," she said with terrible earnestness, "I swear to you, Fred, that never once have I been unfaithful to you, even in thought."
"Never seen Chalfont in town, I suppose?" It was a chance shot, but Woolf saw that it had struck home. "Oh, so you have!" he followed up quickly. "Well—upon my word! That means, before I went away."
"Yes. You shan't say I'm deceiving you. I went to him to borrow some diamonds for Lexie."
The astonishing avowal staggered him.
"That's a pretty admission!" he laughed satirically. "Gentlemen are not in the habit of lending girls diamonds for nothing!"
"Oh, what do you know what gentlemen do?" she retorted, losing control of her temper.
Had she deliberately tried to wound his self-esteem she could have chosen no better way. Inadvertently she had touched on the raw. Woolf would not have admitted it for the world, but deep down in his consciousness he knew that he was not a gentleman and had no pretensions to be called one. What galled him more than all was that Maggy, whose status would have been considered a grade lower than his own, must have detected the social difference between himself and a man like Chalfont. Accidentally she found the vulnerable chink in his armor of swagger and carefully acquired polish.
"That will do," he said, getting up and flushing darkly. "It's a bit too thick when a girl of your class sets up to criticise a man of mine. I'm not a gentleman? Very well, that ends it between you and me."
The stark finality of his words and manner made her tremble all over.
"You mean—Oh, my God, Fred, you can't mean you're done with me?"