“The scoundrel! I suspected that he was rotten somewhere.”
“You are unjust to him. I have not told you properly.”
“Did he tell you that he cared for you?”
“Yes—but he didn’t try to get me to break my engagement.”
“So much the more a scoundrel, he. Tell me, Marian—come to your senses and tell me—what in the devil did he hang about you for and make love to you, if he didn’t want to marry you? Would an honest man, a decent man, do that?”
Marian’s face confessed assent.
“I should think you would have seen what sort of a fellow he is. I should think you would despise him.”
“Sometimes it seems to me that I ought to. But I always end by despising myself—and—and—it makes no difference in the way I feel toward him.”
“I think I would do well to look him up and give him a horse-whipping. But you’ll get over him, Marian. I am astonished at your cousin. How could she let this go on? But then, she’s crazy about him too.”
Marian smiled miserably. “I’ve owned up and you ought to congratulate yourself on so luckily getting rid of such an untrustworthy person as I.”