Hester nodded. “There is a good deal that’s very nice at least in Tony,” she said. “It is Violet I am most sorry for. She believed in him. I wouldn’t worry her just yet, Nettie.”
Violet Wayne in the meanwhile lay very still in her chair. The blow had blunted her susceptibilities, too, and the pain was less intense. She felt numb and passionless, and only realized that the man she had striven to believe in had never existed. The actual Tony had been shown to her, and it was with difficulty she had overcome the sense of disgust and horror which accompanied the revelation. Still, the evident sincerity of his desire to make reparation had touched her, and she was sensible of a curious pity for him. The tenderness was, however, alloyed with contempt, and she wondered vaguely whether that would pass with time. In the meanwhile she was glad he was going to Cuba, for she would be more sure of herself, and where her duty lay, when he came back with his task accomplished, though she realized with a curious unconcern that she might never see him again. Then there was a little tapping at the door, and it was almost a relief to her when Nettie Harding came in.
“I feel horribly mean, and want to ask you to forgive me because I am going away in a day or two,” she said. “Still, I felt I had to tell that story, and if it was necessary I think I would tell it again. I knew it would hurt you, but I couldn’t help it.”
Violet smiled a trifle wearily. “It was a little painful. One can’t hide it. Still, I don’t think anybody would blame you.”
Nettie came forward and seized her hands impulsively. “My dear,” she said, “it would almost have killed me, and I’m ever so sorry—but what could I do? And you know you told me when I tried to ask you that it was better to know the truth. Can’t you understand that if it was only because you didn’t know what kind of man he was I had to tell you?”
“And that was your only reason?”
“No. There was the other man who took the blame! I didn’t tell you, but the insurrection has broken out around Santa Marta where he is again, and he has left all he had and gone back to his comrades because he promised he would when they wanted him, though he knew my father would have made him rich if he had stayed with him. When I thought of him, ragged, hungry, and thirsty, and perhaps wounded, too, while Tony Palliser had everything, I could not sit still and say nothing.”
Violet’s gaze grew steadier as she said, “What is that man to you?”
“Nothing. Only a friend. Oh, of course, you can’t understand, but a girl in America can be quite fond of a man without falling in love with him. Bernard Appleby never tried even the mildest flirtation with me, and he’d have been sorry if he had. He’s nice, and makes one trust him, but he’s ’way behind the man I’m going to marry.”
Her tone carried conviction with it, and Violet made a little gesture. “Yes,” she said slowly, “it is not astonishing that you believe in him.”