Joyce hesitates. She raises her head and looks at Miss Maliphant earnestly. What a good face she has, if plain. Too good to be made unhappy. After all, why not tell her the truth? It would be a warning. It was impossible to be blind to the fact that Miss Maliphant had been glad to receive the dishonest attentions paid to her every now and then by Beauclerk. Those attentions would probably be increased now, and would end but one way. He would get Miss Maliphant's money, and she—that good, kind-hearted girl—what would she get? It seems cruel to be silent, and yet to speak is difficult. Would it be fair or honorable to divulge his secret?
Would it be fair or honorable to let her imagine what is not true? He had been false to her—Joyce (she could not blind herself to the knowledge that with all his affected desire for her he would never have made her an offer of his hand but for her having come in for that money)—he would therefore be false to Miss Maliphant; he would marry her undoubtedly, but as a husband he would break her heart. Is she, for the sake of a word or two, to see her fall a prey to a mere passionless fortune-hunter? A thousand times no! Better inflict a little pain now rather than let this girl endure endless pain in the future.
With a shrinking at her heart, born of the fear that the word will be very bitter to her guest, she says, "Yes;" very distinctly.
"Ha!" says Miss Maliphant, and that is all. Joyce, regarding her anxiously, is as relieved as astonished to see no trace of grief or chagrin upon her face. There is no change at all, indeed, except she looks deeply reflective. Her mind seems to be traveling backward, picking up loose threads of memory, no doubt, and joining them together. A sense of intense comfort fills Joyce's soul. After all; the wound had not gone deep; she had been right to speak.
"He is not worth thinking about," says she, tremulously, apropos of nothing, as it seems.
"No?" says Miss Maliphant; "then what were you crying about?"
"I hardly know. I felt nervous—and once I did like him—not very much—but still I liked him—and he was a disappointment."
"Tell you what," says Miss Maliphant, "you've hit upon a big truth. He is not worth thinking about. Once, perhaps, I, too, liked him, and I was an idiot for my pains; but I shan't like him again in a hurry. I expect I've got to let him know that, one way or another. And as for you——"
"I tell you I never liked him much," says Joyce, with a touch of displeasure. "He was handsome, suave, agreeable—but——"
"He was, and is, a hypocrite!" interrupts Miss Maliphant, with truly beautiful conciseness. She has never learned to mince matters. "And, when all is told, perhaps nothing better than a fool! You are well out of it, in my opinion."