"I refused to listen," said Beatrice coldly. "That he should try to excuse himself only made it worse."
"I'm not sure that's very logical. I'll confess that Harding and I seldom agree, but one must be fair."
"Does that mean that one ought to be lenient?" Beatrice asked with an angry sparkle in her eyes.
Mowbray was conscious of some embarrassment. His ideas upon the subject were not sharply defined, but if it had not been his daughter who questioned him he could have expressed them better. Beatrice ought to have left her parents to deal with a delicate matter like this, but instead she had boldly taken it into her own hands. He had tried to bring up his children well, but the becoming modesty which characterized young women in his youth had gone.
"No," he answered; "not exactly lenient. But the thing may not be so bad as you think—and one must make allowances. Then, a broken engagement reflects upon both parties. Even if one of them has an unquestionable grievance, it proves that that person acted very rashly in making a promise in the first instance."
"Yes," said Beatrice; "that is my misfortune. I was rash and easily deceived. I made the bargain in confiding ignorance, without reserve, while the man kept a good deal back."
"But your mother tells me that he declared he had never seen the woman; and Harding is not a liar."
"I used to think so, but it looks as if I were mistaken," Beatrice answered bitterly as she turned away.
Leaving him, she found a quiet spot in the shadow of a bluff, and sat down to grapple with her pain. It had hurt more than she had thought possible to cast off Harding, and she could bear her trouble only by calling pride to her aid. There was, she told herself, much about the man that had from the first offended her, but she had made light of it, believing him steadfast and honorable. Now she knew she had been deceived. She had been ready to throw away all the privileges of her station; she had disregarded her friends' opinion—and this was her reward! The man for whom she would have made the sacrifice was gross and corrupt; but nobody should guess that she found it strangely hard to forget him.
Lance came upon her, there at the edge of the woods; but her head was buried in her arms and she did not see him. The boy turned at once and went to have a talk with his father. His expression was very resolute when he entered Mowbray's study.