“I do care for her. Too much to make a—second best of her.”
“Oh, stupid! Stupid!” she cried to herself. “What does it matter!”
He went on, in a horrified voice.
“You surely wouldn’t recommend a marriage founded on a deception?”
A cynical thought occurred to her.
“They’re all founded on deceptions,” she reflected. “On lies that people believe about each other.”
“I’m not recommending anything,” she said, aloud. “I only want to say again that I’m very sorry for all this, Mr. Malloy.”
He went away, down the little garden walk for the last time.
“She’s not the high-minded woman I thought her!” he reflected. “She’s—her ideas are absolutely—sordid.”
And then he forgot her in his profound sorrow.