It was plain that her trifling irritated the man almost to madness. At this terrible moment, when his "first and only love" had asserted itself after suffering and struggles unspeakable, he was laughingly taken to task like a school-boy. He controlled himself, however. This question must be decided now; to see that it was decided with dignity was his task.
"I had then been Kitty's guide and companion from the mill, where I first saw her," he replied, with tolerable composure.
A dark blush of surprise crimsoned Flora's cheek. Her eyes sparkled: she bit her lip. "Ah! this is the first I have heard of that. She too,—the hypocrite of the 'pure' heart had her reasons for suppressing all mention of this interesting meeting." She laughed a short, hard laugh. "And what more, Bruck?" she demanded, her arms still folded, one foot advanced upon the carpet.
"If you persist in this tone, no explanation is possible for me except in writing." And he indignantly attempted to pass her.
She stepped before him. "Good heavens! how tragically you take it! I am only doing my best to play my part in your little farce. What! you would strive with me in a warfare of the pen? Dear Leo, believe me, you would come off the loser there, in spite of the telling medical brochures you have given to the world."
The arrogant smile that accompanied her words faded upon her lips in the presence of the stern cold glance that met her own. Gradually the suspicion dawned within her that he was indeed in earnest, bitter earnest; not as to his pretended affection for Kitty,—that passed all belief,—but as to his resolution, in spite of his passionate love for herself, to break with his capricious betrothed at the last moment rather than submit to a life-long "fiery trial." She regretted the words she had spoken, but arrogance and vanity retained their mastery of her.
"Then go!" she said, stepping aside. "I will not bear such looks as the one you have just given me. Go! I will not stir a finger to keep you." She burst into a scornful laugh. "Oh, rare masculine nature, so vaunted and so sung! There was a time when I begged almost upon my knees for my freedom; the chains were only the more closely riveted upon me. Look then, and learn from me what in such moments is the sole and only stay even for a 'vain, weak, feminine nature:' pride——"
"It was pride that then made me inexorable,—invincible pride, although a very different quality from the mixture of anger and defiance which you designate as such," he interrupted her. "I confess I was wrong,—very wrong. I will trouble you, as I have said, with no self-justification that might seem to throw blame upon others however remotely. The motive for my conduct then sprang from a fancied need to assert my own force, my masculine will, which as I thought should rise superior to all vagaries of feeling. I would not give you back your troth because I had been accustomed to regard my own when once plighted as pledged for all eternity. From that point of view our betrothal was as indissoluble as a Catholic marriage. I do not deny that the relics of my student days had weight with me in a false conception of honour. I spoke of one spring of action to you on that evening, and I refer to it again. I did not choose to join the throng of those who had been bound to your chariot-wheels only to be publicly rejected. I repeat that this was a boyish, unformed view to take, since in such cases it is not the man's honour, but the woman's, that is compromised."
She turned from him and drummed angrily with her fingers upon the table. "I never concealed from you the fact that I had been wooed repeatedly before our betrothal," she said, with proud indifference.
"You never did, nor did any of my acquaintances," he interposed. "But you must not forget that you were the lofty ideal of my boyhood. At the university, in my last campaign, I was spurred on by the thought that the proud heart so often wooed had never inclined to any, that it would bless him who should win it——" He broke off; he would not refer to the coquetry she had displayed; he scorned to bring the slightest recrimination to his aid.