‘Well?’ she said, with a harsh laugh,‘ have you come to talk about my missing ring, Herr Falkenberg? Do you want to know where it is, and who has it now? I can inform you that it has gone back to the man who gave it me–because–because he has sent me word that I am free. He thinks of marrying some one else.’
There was a discordant, grating sound in her voice, and she laughed again. The laugh encouraged Rudolf in his purpose.
‘I guessed it was something like that,’ he said, ‘when I saw that it was gone. The man could neither appreciate nor understand you. I have felt it for a long time.’
‘Is that to console me?’ she asked sarcastically.
‘It should console you, in time. Women of such stuff as you are made of cannot grieve for ever for a coxcomb. If they do, they degrade themselves to his level.’
He saw the scarlet colour that rushed over her face and throat, and the strangely mingled glance she threw towards him. He had not miscalculated.
‘You did not know him. You have no right to call him a coxcomb,’ she said. ‘You slight me by—’
‘By supposing you capable of making a mistake? There you are wrong. The only thing that can be infallibly predicted by one human being of another, is that during his life he will make a great many mistakes. I should slight you if I supposed you capable for a moment of breaking your heart for Jerome Wellfield.’
He had spoken the name advisedly. It had never passed between them before. Its effect was to make her cover her face with her hands, and cry faintly and pitiably.
As Falkenberg saw this sight–saw this girl crouching and weeping, and heartbroken and desperate in consequence of having been deceived and deserted by Jerome Wellfield, his heart was hot within him. He went up to her, took her hands from before her face, and as she looked at him she saw that his eyes were full of wrath, and his brow clouded with angry feeling.