“I scarcely think that is a thing you could expect me to admit––that is, at least, as far as my part in it goes,” said Nasmyth.
“Still,” replied Violet, “you admitted that you felt I might be right.”
She looked anxious, and Nasmyth realized that, since she might have written what she had to say, it must have cost her a good deal to break with him personally. The courage which had prompted her to summon him appealed to him, and, in place of anger, he was conscious of a certain sympathy for her.
“In one sense you were certainly right,” he said. “We belong to different worlds, and I should never have spoken to you as I did. That is a thing you must try to 316 forgive me, and you have no reason to blame yourself. As I told you at the time, you were free.”
“Ah!” cried Violet, “you are very generous. After all, I expected that from you, and I think it will not hurt you very much to give me up.”
“I wonder why?” asked Nasmyth gravely.
Violet sat silent a moment or two, and then looked up at him quietly.
“Oh,” she said, “you owe so much to that girl in the Bush! She would always have come between us. I think you made me recognize it when you told me about her, though it was only by degrees I came to understand it clearly.”
Nasmyth’s face flushed. “That,” he queried, “is your reason for wishing to get rid of me?”
Violet looked away from him, and there was a telltale self consciousness in her manner when she turned to him again. Nasmyth, who noticed it, winced.