"Of course it does; it always matters to a man to have a charming woman care for him. People envy him his good fortune. They think more highly of him."
"And you wish to be envied?"
"I do not wish it to be supposed that I am so unattractive that no woman can care for me."
"It would please you, then, if people gossipped about us?"
"I don't say that exactly; though I don't see what harm their gossip could do us."
She fixed her grey eyes upon him with a strange expression. In an instant she read his character—its intense selfishness was revealed; and she began to doubt whether he, too, might not be playing with her, as Marmaduke had played; or worse, whether his love might not be the mere prompting of a wretched vanity, which sought her conquest as a trophy, not as a desire.
"Mr. Maxwell, we differ so entirely in our views, that it would be useless to prolong this discussion. I have only this more to say: so far from giving the world any right to gossip about me, in reference to you, it is my determination to relinquish the pleasure of your acquaintance from this time forward. When you have learned what is due to me, I may resume it; not till then."
She rose, as she said this, and walked across the room to Mrs. Langley Turner, by whose side she sat down; while Maxwell gazed on her with mingled feelings of astonishment and rage, his brow darkening, his lips compressed, and every nerve within him trembling.
Mrs. Vyner was wrong in her suspicions. It was not vanity, it was jealousy which prompted his words. He suffered tortures from seeing her smile, and chat with other men, and scarcely notice him. He was sincere in his wish for her to distinguish him above all the rest; not simply to gratify his vanity, but to assure him that she really loved him enough to brave everything for him. Besides, he could not understand how her love allowed her to keep away from his side. Prudence never chilled him. Appearances never restrained him. He could have sat by her all the evening—every evening—it was what he most desired; and he did not understand how she could forego the same pleasure.
Maxwell was narrow-minded, even stupid; but his passions were intense; and at this moment he felt as if he could murder her. He quitted the ball in a state of deep concentrated anger, brooding on what he considered his wrongs.