“Oh, I must not commit myself,” I said, with a forced smile.
“You are so tantalizing,” she said, throwing her tassel at me, “and that reminds me that you promised to complete that unfinished sentence soon.”
“What unfinished sentence?” I asked, with pretended ignorance.
“You must be forgetful, indeed; do you not remember your promise when we parted yesterday morning?”
“Pardon me; I do remember now,” and instantly the thought flashed on me that I would candidly inform her of my intended flirtation, confess my sin, ask her forgiveness, and thus prevent her acting on Miss Belle Monte’s advice. “I recollect now distinctly the sentence to which you refer, and its intended termination. My remarks were made in the same light style in which we were conversing, and I had no idea you would attach sufficient importance to anything I said to think of it at all afterwards. I was about to ask, if I loved you—if I offered my heart—would you reject it? I——”
“That’s what I suspected, sir,” she cut in before I could finish, and with a deprecatory wave of her hand dismissing what I had said as painful, “and while the suspicion flattered it pained me.”
“But, Miss Finnock,” I said, hurriedly, “you certainly misun——”
“Flattered, indeed, I was,” she went on, without allowing my interruption, “because one so noble and gifted as yourself had conferred on me the honor of his love, and pained that I must refuse it.”
I was too much astonished to reply, while she went on:
“But, Mr. Smith, while a calm review of my own feelings forces me to discard you, or if that is too harsh a word, to ask you to be only my friend, I can assure you that our brief intercourse has been exceedingly pleasant to me. It will ever be an oasis in the desert of my past, and I trust that the rainbow of mutual regard and esteem will ever arch brightly o’er our pathways, however diverse they may be. And when Time’s fingers have plastered over the scars I regret to inflict, and you have found another love, whose voice may be sweeter, and eye brighter, and heart dearer than mine, I hope you will not think of this evening with anger, but with the pleasure of forgiveness.”