“Break off ... this conversation?” His tone was aggrieved. “Of course I’ve no wish to force myself—”
She interrupted him with a raised hand. “Break off for good, Henry.”
“For good?” He stared, and gave a quick swallow, as though the dose were choking him. “For good? Are you really—? You and I? Is this serious, Lizzie?”
“Perfectly. But if you prefer to hear ... what can only be painful....”
He straightened himself, threw back his shoulders, and said in an uncertain voice: “I hope you don’t take me for a coward.”
She made no direct reply, but continued: “Well, then, you thought I loved you, I suppose—”
He smiled again, revived his moustache with a slight twist, and gave a hardly perceptible shrug. “You ... ah ... managed to produce the illusion....”
“Oh, well, yes: a woman can—so easily! That’s what men often forget. You thought I was a lovelorn mistress; and I was only an expensive prostitute.”
“Elizabeth!” he gasped, pale now to the ruddy eyelids. She saw that the word had wounded more than his pride, and that, before realizing the insult to his love, he was shuddering at the offence to his taste. Mistress! Prostitute! Such words were banned. No one reproved coarseness of language in women more than Henry Prest; one of Mrs. Hazeldean’s greatest charms (as he had just told her) had been her way of remaining, “through it all,” so ineffably “the lady.” He looked at her as if a fresh doubt of her sanity had assailed him.
“Shall I go on?” she smiled.