“Need you ask?” Then her voice softened again. “Arthur,” she said, “many words are not necessary, are they? It has all been hasty, mistaken, foolish, but it has not lasted very long. Now let us both—forget.”
“Do you mean,” he asked sharply, “that you wish to break off our engagement?”
“Yes,” she answered, groping for words so carefully that she hesitated—“yes, that is what I mean. I did foolishly to agree to it, and that will always be the first thing I shall remember. Why you wished it I don’t know,”—she drew a long breath—“happily it is not yet too late, and it has just got to be as though it had never been.”
“I should still like to know what is my offence. That I left you to go back alone yesterday? I should have supposed that would have pleased you.”
“I think you are ungenerous,” said the girl, with a flash. “Do you take me for a stone? I am not reproaching you. Oh,” she broke out more wildly, “can’t you let it be over and done with without words?”
“No,” said Fenwick savagely. “I suppose this is all woman’s confounded jealousy.”
He was really angry, and conflicting with a sense of relief came indignation that she could let him go.
“Have it as you like,” Claudia answered proudly; “I have said enough. It has been a mistake, a mistake made by us both; but fortunately there is still time to draw back. Some day perhaps you will see that I could not have acted otherwise.” She flung out her hands. “There! It is over. Will you ring the bell that I may send this?”
Her manner still stung him, and he was not generous enough to own to himself how entirely he had forced it upon her.
“You have taken the law into your own hands with a vengeance,” he said bitterly, as he crossed the room. “Apparently I am expected to accept sentence without so much as being told the manner of my offending. Gloriously feminine, upon my word! Warren, take this to the telegraph office.” He held it another moment in his hand and turned to her. “You wish it to go?”