"If I had not been the besotted fool that I am, I should have accepted my dismissal as it was given--coolly, definitely, and without the slightest remorse; but, unfortunately, I am weak enough not to be able to take things in this way. I had too much at stake--my future happiness was too deeply involved--to permit of my bowing to my fate, and endeavouring to forget what had been the one sole excitement of many months in some new study or pursuit."
He paused again, as though expecting her to speak. But she was silent, and he continued:
"My sister, who was the cause of our first introduction, has been since the medium through which I have ascertained all my information about you. She was very chatty at first, and never was tired of talking to me of what you did and said, and where you went, and enlarging on the dulness of the life which you pursued. She little thought, I imagine, what intense interest I took in her voluble prattle. She thought me too much immersed in my own affairs to take any real heed of what she was saying, and imagined that I merely induced her to go on in order to distract my mind from graver subjects, and to fill up what would have been the tedium of my enforced leisure. It was not until the occasion of the little tea-party at that young lady's---- I see you smile; but from me the appellation is correct."
"I beg your pardon, I did not smile, Mr. Merton," said Daisy, almost savagely; "I am listening to you at your request. I am in no smiling humour; and I must beg you to make this interview as brief as possible."
"It was on the occasion of the tea-party at Miss Manby's then," continued John Merton, "that I think Bella saw for the first time that all my queries about you had been put with deliberate intention, and had a definite aim. Previously to that she had once or twice joked me in her light way about my admiration of you, but nothing more; but you may recollect--I do perfectly--that on that night she took delight in teasing me about that portrait which Mr. Kammerer had taken of you, and about the man--I beg your pardon, the gentleman--who came to the place and insisted upon buying it."
John stopped here, and looked at her so pointedly that Daisy could not restrain the rising blush in her cheek. She said quietly:
"I do recollect it perfectly."
"Of course you do; no woman ever forgets any occasion on which she sees a man piqued or jealous at her preference of another."
"There was no question of preference in the matter," said Daisy. "I knew nothing about the gentleman who wished to purchase the portrait; I had only seen him once; and there can be no great crime, even in the category of sins proscribed by the severe doctrine which I presume you hold, and which, at all events, you teach, in a girl's finding pleasure at admiration bestowed upon her."
"I must get back to my facts," said John Merton, quietly. "I suppose I showed that I was annoyed that night, and from my annoyance Bella judged that I was in earnest about you. We don't meet very often, and we have very little in common, for she is younger than I am, and does not take quite the same view of the world that I do--she has not seen so much of it, poor girl; and for a long time you were not mentioned between us. During all the time that I was in suspense, before I had made up my mind to express my feelings to you, and ask you to be my wife, and after that in the short period before I met you walking in the street, we seemed mutually to avoid any mention of your name. It seemed to me too sacred to be bandied about with such jests and light talk as Bella would probably have used concerning it; and she seemed to understand my feeling and to humour it. At all events, during that time nothing was said about you; but since then--since I heard from your own lips what was equivalent to my dismissal--we have frequently reverted to the theme. You will understand, please, that in mentioning what I am going to tell you, I am by no means endeavouring to harrow your feelings, or to work upon your compassion; it simply comes in as part of what I have to say; and I must say it."