‘He pretended to be!’ cried Quita maliciously, ‘because it was a good blind for them up at the White House, I suppose, but he has been mine and mine only for the last twelve months, and he is nearly mad at the idea of losing me now.’
‘And why must he lose you?’ said Lizzie quickly, forgetting her own pain in her lover’s wrongs. ‘If what you say is true, why do you not marry him, and take care of your little child between you?’
Maraquita shrugged her shoulders.
‘Because my people will not hear of such a marriage for me, and think I should lower myself by becoming the wife of an overseer.’
‘Not so much as you have lowered yourself already, Quita.’
‘Perhaps not, but nobody knows that! And then I am already engaged, so it is of no use talking about anything else.’
‘Poor Henri,’ sighed Lizzie.
‘I can’t see why he is to be pitied! He knew from the beginning that it must all end some day. But I little dreamt it would end like this. I am the one who has suffered all the risk and the blame, and yet no one seems to pity me.’
Lizzie was silent. Her heart was burning within her, and yet pride prevented her speech. It was cruelly humiliating to find that all the time she had been engaged to be married to De Courcelles, he had been carrying on with another girl, and had even had the audacity to make his own fault the putative cause for breaking off his engagement to her. She could not decide at the moment whether she loved or hated him the most, his conduct appeared in so mean and despicable a light.
‘You are right, Maraquita,’ she continued, after a pause. ‘He is not worthy of your pity or mine. He has cruelly deceived us both—and you perhaps the most, since even, if he loved you best, he has served you worst! Even now—in the first pitiless agony of hearing your news—I can thank God I do not stand in your position. And if you should ever think better of your decision regarding him, remember I shall not stand in your light, for from this day Henri de Courcelles will be less than nothing to me.’