"No!" said Worcester, a little confused. "He has not contradicted his former assertion."
"How could it possibly be settled then?" I inquired, merely for the sake of information.
"Why," said Worcester, "Wyndham assured me that the offence which Berkeley conceived it impossible to brook, was my having enclosed, with his letter to you, his envelope addressed to me, in which were written a few civil lines requesting me to forward the enclosed, &c. &c."
"Well?" I ejaculated in earnest surprise.
"Well," repeated Worcester, "I was willing to admit that his note to me, which was civil enough, I never meant to have returned to him, and, if I had done so, it must have been my mistake: and Wyndham assured me that, since I was ready to acknowledge so much, he had no doubt that the business might be arranged, this and this only being the unpardonable offence."
To make an end, the affair was brought to a conclusion.
I make no comments on a subject to which I cannot presume myself to be competent. The real facts being stated, and I believe Harry Wyndham will bear me out in them, the world may, and we all know it will, put what construction it pleases on the conduct of either or both parties. For my own part, I am not like those ugly women and cross old maids who abuse the world, or the world's judgment of my actions. Generally speaking, I have found the world act fairly, justly, and often, very liberally, towards me.
It is certainly, perhaps, a misfortune in many respects for a woman to become the fashion, which was my case; for what second-rate man does not like to be in the fashion? Nay, there are few, very few, who would not affect pride in the possession of what their betters have coveted in vain!