Cecil sank down into a seat, and his chin twitched. "Then you have played with me most abominably. The world was right when it called you a heartless flirt, and said that you were too cold to care for anything save pleasure and admiration. I thought I knew you better, more fool I! But the world was right and I was wrong."
"I don't think that we need discuss my character," said Elisabeth. She was very angry with herself that she had placed herself in such a position that any man dared to sit in judgment upon her; but even then she could not elevate Cecil into the object of her indignation.
He went on like a querulous child. "It is desperately hard on me that you have treated me in this way! You might have snubbed me at once if you had wished to do so, and not have made me a laughing-stock in the eyes of the world. I made no secret of the fact that I intended to marry you; I talked about it to everybody; and now everybody will laugh at me for having been your dupe."
So he had boasted to his friends of the fortune he was going to annex, and had already openly plumed himself upon securing her money! Elisabeth understood perfectly, and was distinctly amused. She wondered if he would remember to remind her how she was going to elevate him by her influence, or if the loss of her money would make him forget even to simulate sorrow at the loss of herself.
"I don't know what I shall do," he continued, with tears of vexation in his eyes; "everybody is expecting our engagement to be announced, and I can not think what excuses I shall invent. A man looks such a fool when he has made too sure of a woman!"
"Doubtless. But that isn't the woman's fault altogether."
"Yes; it is. If the woman hadn't led him on, the man wouldn't have made sure of her. You have been unutterably cruel to me—unpardonably cruel; and I will never forgive you as long as I live."
Elisabeth winced at this—not at Cecil's refusal to forgive her, but at the thought that she had placed herself within the reach of his forgiveness. But she was not penitent—she was only annoyed. Penitence is the last experience that comes to strong-willed, light-hearted people, such as Elisabeth; they are so sure they are right at the time, and they so soon forget about it afterward, that they find no interval for remorse. Elisabeth was beginning to forgive herself for having fallen for a time from her high ideal, because she was already beginning to forget that she had so fallen; life had taught her many things, but she took it too easily even yet.
"I have a story to tell you," she said; "a story that will interest you, if you will listen."
By this time Cecil's anger was settling down into sulkiness. "I have no alternative, I suppose."