“It’s not your fault,” said the man, with an attempt at gentleness in his voice. “I couldn’t blame you, if I were brute enough to wish to.”
“Blame me! Oh, really—I think you’re mad, you know!”
“Besides,” continued the young man, philosophically, “I think we ought to be glad, don’t you?”
“Yes—that we are not going to break our hearts now that it’s over.”
Clare thought his tone horribly business-like and indifferent.
“Oh no! We sha’n’t break our hearts any more! We are not children.” Her voice was thin and bitter, with a crying laugh in it.
“Look here, Fan!” said Brook suddenly. “This is all nonsense. We agreed to play together, and we’ve played very nicely, and now you have to go home, and I have got to stay here, whether I like it or not. Let us be good friends and say good-bye, and if we meet again and have nothing better to do, we can play again if we please. But as for taking it in this tragical way—why, it isn’t worth it.”
The young girl crouching in the shadow felt as though she had been struck, and her heart went out with indignant sympathy to the little lady in white.
“Do you know? I think you are the most absolutely brutal, cynical creature I ever met!” There was anger in the voice, now, and something more—something which Clare could not understand.