“Thank you. Oh! a thousand times thank you, John.”
“But, dearest Lulie,” I continued, “while my heart is bleeding, let me tear it all it may be torn. Tell me, do you love Frank Paning? Does he hold what I would give my life to win? Do not fear to hurt me now.”
“John, dear John, do not ask me;” and her frame commenced trembling violently again.
“‘Tis as I expected,” I said, bitterly. “But, oh! this is the keenest pain of all. Frank Paning! To know that he may hold your hand, and feel it throb its love to his; that he may gaze into your eyes and read your love for him; that he may know that Lulie, my darling, my idol, is his alone; while I—— Oh, Lulie, I’d rather you’d love the veriest dog that laps the dust around your door than Frank Paning.”
“Hush! hush! for the love of mercy hush!” she said, putting up her hand.
“Lulie, I cannot, will not hush. We will never talk together again as we do now; and, as that dearest friend you have termed me, I wish to warn you. He is not worthy of your love.”
She laid down the bonnet string, which she had been crimping in her fingers while I was talking, and looking straight at me, the least perceptible frown on her brow, and a flush on her cheek, said:
“John, I know you too well to believe you capable of meanly trying to injure a rival simply because of his success. I do you the justice to believe you sincere in your opinions, but your judgment is warped by prejudice; you cannot know him as I do, or you would love and trust him.”
“My dear Lulie, it is because I know him far better than you do that I warn you against him. I expect you to believe that all I say in regard to him is the fruit of my disappointment, but I must, ere we close this subject forever, tell you why he is unworthy, and why I warn you against him. And I trust, as you believe in my honor, you will not think I am influenced by any hope of thus supplanting him in your favor. I bow to your decision of this evening as final, nor would I cause you to revoke it, if I could, by maligning him.”