“Well, that would be much more dishonourable than anything I have done.”
“I suppose so. I don’t care. I don’t call that kind of thing honour. I wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
“I fail to see any distinction, Mabel. You never had any reasoning faculty. I am much more suited to the Duke, anyhow, for he is really clever.”
“It isn’t cleverness he’s after.”
“Oh, of course he must have money. One is used to that. It’s like knowing that lots of people come to your house because you give good dinners; but you don’t like them any the less; in fact, don’t think about it. We have to take the world as we find it. If you regard the Duke as a fortune-hunter I wonder you can still love him.”
Mabel turned her head and regarded Miss Forbes with a haughty stare. “I do not love him,” she said, “I despise him too thoroughly. It is my pride only that is irritated. Don’t let there be any doubt on that point.”
“Well, I am delighted—relieved! It has worried me, made me genuinely unhappy; it has indeed, Mabel dear. I will admit that I had misgivings, that I was not altogether satisfied with myself; but now I can be as happy as ever again. And you don’t think it dishonourable? Please say that.”
“No, I don’t think it dishonourable; (for we are no longer friends),” she added to herself; but she was too generous to say it aloud.
Augusta went away a few minutes later, and Mabel, who was not going out that evening, flung herself on the divan, and sobbed into her cushions.