“Yes. You played fast and loose with me. You listened to my declaration of love. You suffered me to believe that you loved me.”
“Mr. Darrell!”
“You did more, Eleanor,” cried the young man, passionately; “you did love me. This marriage with Gilbert Monckton, a man twenty years your senior, is a marriage prompted by base and mercenary motives. You loved me, Eleanor; your silence admitted it that day, if your words did not. You had no right to be cajoled by my mother; you had no right to leave Hazlewood without a word of explanation to me. You are false-hearted and mercenary, Mrs. Monckton; and you have married this man here because he is the owner of a fine house, and can give you money to spend upon your womanly caprices—your selfish vanities.”
He pointed scornfully to her silk dress as he spoke, and to the golden trinkets that guttered at her waist.
She looked at him with a strange expression in her face.
“Think of me as you please,” she said; “think that I was in love with you, if you like.”
It was as if she had said to him, “Fall into a trap of your own setting, if you please. I am not base enough to lay such a snare for you.”
“Yes, Eleanor, you were false and mercenary. You were foolish, perhaps, as well: for I may be a rich man before very long. I may be master of the Woodlands property.”
“I don’t think you ever will inherit that fortune,” Eleanor said, slowly. “You talk of my being base and mercenary; you are at liberty to think so if you please. But have you never done base things for the sake of money, Launcelot Darrell?”
The man’s face darkened.