“You are rather late in your resolves,” he said, biting his lip until the blood sprang.
“I have thought and hoped,” she said, looking down, “that one day I might feel differently, and be able to give you what you wanted, if only out of gratitude to you for your kindness. I thought, perhaps, it was that you had taken me by surprise, that I was ignorant and inexperienced, and that my feelings would change.”
“You were right!” he cried vehemently. “Think so still, Bice, my darling, my own! You do not know, how should you? Marry me, and I will teach you to love me. I have no fear, no doubt.”
“But now I know,” she said, going on as if he had not spoken, “and it is all different. I can’t marry you, even to save Clive. I could not even if I had promised. Do not be sorry, Oliver, I am not worth it.”
“It is easy to say ‘Do not.’ Do you suppose our feelings are so under control that we can master them at pleasure?” he retorted with bitterness. “You let me hope, you hold the cup almost to my lips, and then tell me not to be sorry when it is dashed away. Who has been teaching you to play fast and loose, Bice? Who has shaken your faith in your friends? When will one of them do what I have done, what I am ready to do? Has your mother told you that she has borrowed money from me to pay her debts, because she did not doubt—”
He stopped. Bice had sprung up, pale, with flashing eyes.
“That is not true!” she cried.
“Is it not? Ask her.”
She looked at him as if she would pierce his soul. Alas, it is not always the most innocent souls which bear such looks without faltering! Her own eyes fell. “I will pay it,” she said in a low voice.
“That is folly.”