So she had abandoned the untenable position of reason, and had withdrawn to the cover of a statement of complete femininity. She gave a sigh of relief: she knew where she was now. She was on firm ground.
“I am afraid, Josephine,” said he with the utmost calmness, “that you have been too late in coming to this determination. You cannot be so flagrantly inconsistent.”
“I know nothing about consistency or inconsistency; I love another man, and all the arguments in the world will not prevent my loving him.”
She knew where she stood now. Her position was impregnable.
“You say that you broke off your engagement with me. Why? Because I had not got your father’s consent. Well, if the absence of your father’s consent was a legitimate reason for our engagement coming to an end it is certainly a reason for your refraining from entering into an engagement with another man, for your father cannot give his consent to two men at the same time. You see that you cannot possibly—as you are showing—be engaged to any one but myself.”
“I told you I care nothing for consistency—or reason—or logic—or—or—you. I love another man—I love another man.”
“I am sorry for you, dear Josephine. But if you do not care anything for consistency and me, I care for consistency and you far too much to relinquish either. If you can show me that there has ever been a breach in our engagement I might be led to consider the situation from another standpoint. Look at me and tell me that you understood clearly when we parted last that you were free—that there was no uneasy feeling in your mind that you were still bound to me. You see, you cannot. You are silent. Yes, my dearest, there was a bond between us when we separated, and you and I are engaged now, as we have been for several months, and your father and mother take exactly the same view of our position, and are good enough to sanction it. That is enough for me; it should be enough for you. I decline to take any other view of the matter. You have admitted tacitly—that I never released you. I decline to release you now. Of course you will accept the situation. Think over it and you will find that no alternative remains. Good-bye, my dear—for the present.”
He did not ask her to give him her hand; but simply moved smiling, to the door with a wave of his own hand that somehow produced upon her the effect of shaking hands with her—at any rate that graceful gesture rendered a parting salute unnecessary, without the slightest suggestion of a breach of courtesy.
He was gone, and he had got the better of her—that was her first impression when he had closed the door—very gently—behind him. He had been too clever for her. She knew long ago that it would be ridiculous for her to hope to get the better of him.
And the worst of it was that he was altogether in the right. He was hopelessly in the right. She had treated him badly. She had behaved dishonestly, whatever Pierce Winwood might say by way of exculpating her: she had parted from Ernest Clifton feeling—she could not deny it face to face with him—bound to him, and she could not but acknowledge that until she had a complete understanding with him, she had no right to listen to a word of love to another man.