“This is a miserable business,” he said at last in a tone that expressed profound humiliation and utter disgust.
George did not answer, for he was quite of the same opinion. He stood leaning against a card-table, drumming with his fingers on the green cloth behind him. Sherry Trimm paused in his walk, and struck his clenched fist upon the palm of his other hand. Then he shook his head and began to pace the floor again.
“An abominable business,” he muttered. “I cannot see that there is anything to be done, but to beg your pardon for it all,” he said, suddenly turning to George.
“You need not do that,” George answered readily. “It is not your fault, Cousin Sherry. All I want to say, is what I had already written to you. If Mamie will change her mind and marry me, I am ready.”
Trimm looked at him sharply.
“You are a good fellow, George,” he said. “But I don’t think I could stand that. You never loved her as you ought to love to be happy. I saw that long ago and I guessed that there had been something wrong. You have been tricked into the whole thing—and—just go away and leave me here, will you? I cannot stand this.”
George took the outstretched hand and shook it warmly. Then he left the room and closed the door behind him. In that moment he pitied Sherrington Trimm far more than he pitied Mamie herself. He could understand the man’s humiliation better than the girl’s broken heart. He went out of the club and turned homewards. He had yet to communicate the intelligence to his father, and he was oddly curious to see what the old gentleman would say. An hour later he had told the whole story with every detail he could remember, from the day when Totty had told him to go and see Mamie to his recent interview with Sherry Trimm.
“I am sorry for you, George,” said Jonah Wood. “I am very sorry for you.”
“I think, on the whole, that is more than I can say for myself,” George answered. “I am far more sorry for Mamie and her father. It is a relief to me. I would not have believed it, this morning.”
“Do you mean that you were not in love?”