"Certainly I did, madam."
"And during all these past months understood thoroughly how matters would be?"
"Certainly, madam."
"And knowing, continued still—with a view to deceive me—to treat me as the future mistress of Herst?"
"I trust, madam, I always treated you with proper respect. You would not surely have had me as rude to you as you invariably were to me? I may not be a gentleman, Miss Amherst, in your acceptation of that term, but I make it a rule never to be—offensive."
"It was a low—a mean revenge," says Marcia, through her teeth, her eyes aflame, her lips colorless; "one worthy of you. I understand you, sir; but do not for an instant think you have crushed me." Raising her head haughtily, she sweeps past him back to her original seat.
Molly has risen to her feet. She is very pale and faint; her eyes, large and terrified, like a fawn's, are fixed, oddly enough, upon Philip. The news has been too sudden, too unexpected, to cause her even the smallest joy as yet. On the contrary, she knows only pity for him who, but a few minutes before, she was reviling in her thoughts. Perhaps the sweetness of her sympathy is the one thing that could have consoled Philip just then.
"'Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness,'" he says, with a little sneering laugh, shrugging his shoulders. Then, rousing himself, he draws a long breath, and goes straight up to Molly.
"Permit me to congratulate you," he says, with wonderful grace, considering all things. He is standing before her, with his handsome head well up, a certain pride of birth about him, strong enough to carry him successfully through this great and lasting disaster. "It is, after all, only natural that of the three you should inherit. Surprise should lie in the fact that never did such a possibility occur to us. We might have known that even our grandfather's worn and stony heart could not be proof against such grace and sweetness as yours."
He bows over her hand courteously, and, turning away, walks back again to the window, standing with his face hidden from them all.