She did not answer; for the first time in her life this girl, who was so witty, versatile and brilliant, was at a loss for words.
“It is but right that you should know who and what I am,” he pursued, slowly. “Indeed, I should have prefaced my declaration of love with that information. I am but a struggling author, Queenie—a man who is fighting hard to make his way in the crowded field of letters to future great achievements. I might have made money in the past had I grasped the opportunities held out to me. I have been of a roving disposition—nomadic in my tastes, eager to see the whole wide world, and give to the people who stay at home glimpses of foreign lands, through my pen.
“I was prodigal with the money I earned from this source. I gave it freely to the poor and needy, who were everywhere about. On the burning sands of Africa, or on the snowy plains of Russia, when I lay down to sleep, with only the sky above me, I was as happy as men who lie down in palaces. I had no care, I was as free from it as the joyous air that blows. I led a happy enough life of it until I came here and met you; from that hour the world has seemed to change for me. I am no longer the careless, happy-go-lucky fellow of a few short weeks ago, leading a merry, Bohemian existence—just as content without money as with it.
“If you will say that there is hope for me I will remedy all that; I will go to work with a will and make something grand and noble out of my life, with the one thought like a guiding star ever before me: The woman I love shall be proud of me. I——”
The sentence never was finished. Glancing up at that moment he caught sight of her face, which she had turned so that the white, bright moonlight fell full upon it.
The scorn on the beautiful face, the anger that blazed in the dark eyes, the contempt the curling lips revealed, appalled him. He had much more to tell her that was important, but the words fairly froze on his lips, and died away unmuttered.
“Hush! not another word,” she cried, quite as soon as she was able to speak, through her intense anger. “You have basely deceived me, as well as every one else. You knew of the current report that you were a man of fabulous wealth and you let it go uncontradicted. You have sailed under false colors to force your way into society. You have cheated and deluded us into believing that you were a gentleman. Being what you are—a nobody—you insult me with your proposal of marriage. Conduct me back to the hotel at once, please.”
His face had grown white as marble—even his lips were colorless. His eyes were dim with a sorrow too intense for words, and his strong hands trembled like aspen leaves in the wind, and his bosom heaved. Her cruel, taunting words had struck home to the very core of his heart, and made a cruel wound there, like the stinging cut of a deadly, poisoned dagger.
There was no mistaking the meaning of her words, she spoke plainly enough. If he had been rich he would have stood a fair chance of winning her. The love of a great, strong, honorable heart did not count with her. Her affection was not for exchange, but for sale. The beautiful girl whom he had thought little less than the angels above was but common clay, a mercenary creature, who weighed gold in the scale against marriage, and whose idea of a gentleman, one of nature’s noblemen, was measured by his wealth. To her a poor man was less than the dust beneath her dainty feet.
“You have heard what I have said, Mr. Dinsmore,” said Queenie Trevalyn, haughtily. “Pray conform with my request by taking me back to the ballroom at once. Were it not for appearances I would leave you and return myself.”