"I should think she would be awfully sorry to know that a man had broken his engagement with her, and that's why I——"
"Mr. Revere, I believe you are sorry yourself, after all! I believe you are half in love with her still!" reproachfully.
"Now, Emily, you know that's nonsense. Why, I felt so joyful when she said she was in love with that Van Dorn, that I had to turn away my face for fear she would see how enraptured I was."
"Why didn't you tell her frankly, honestly, right then, that you were pleased with it; that you were engaged to me; that you had broken the engagement before? It was your duty,—your duty to me. You failed me; you failed me before. I can't trust you." Most unkindly and unjustly spoken words were these, indeed.
"Why, Emily, my dear child——"
"I'm not a child, and don't you call me one! I am a woman, though you treat me like a child, and I'm not dear to you, either! You are sacrificing me to that other girl," bitterly, tearfully, but with great determination.
Revere was nonplussed by the revelation of these essentially feminine characteristics in Emily's otherwise charming personality. He did not know what to do or how to answer her in his bewilderment.
"Are you going to give her that letter or not?" she asked, insistently, after a pause which he appeared unable to break unaided.
"Well," he said at last, but very reluctantly, "I suppose if you insist upon it I must; but frankly, I think it would be better not to do so. I do not believe it is right."
"Is there something in it you don't want me to know?" suspiciously.