Hunter bent his fair head, but she pushed him away with her hands against his chest. A horror of his beauty, his deliberate fascination, the falseness of him, came over her. For the first time she had been brought face to face with sin and falsehood, and hers was the unpardoning white condemnation of an angel to whom sin is unknown and falsehood impossible. That such knowledge should have come through him of all men made the thing more unbearable. Surprised and irritated by the pale tragedy of her aspect, Hunter stared, waiting for her to speak.
"I was on the stairs. I heard you—and that woman," said she with the directness that was sometimes so appalling. "And I know." Her face turned burning red before it paled again. She was ashamed for him with the noble shame of the pure in heart.
His face, too, went red and white with rage and astonishment. It was a damnable trap for a man to be caught in, and he was furious with the two women who had pushed him into it—he could have beaten them both with rods. Innocent as this girl was, he could not hope to deceive her as to the real truth. She had heard too much. But he thought he could manage her; women were as wax in Hunter's hands. To begin with, they wanted to believe him.
"I hate to have to say it—but the lady is jealous," he said frankly enough, with a disarming smile; and shrugged his shoulders, quite as if that simple statement explained and excused everything.
"Oh, she need not be afraid—of me!" said the girl, with white-hot scorn. "I'd rather die by inches of leprosy than belong to you now. You are clever, though. And I was easy to deal with, wasn't I? And I cared so much! I dare say it was really your hair and beard, but I honestly thought you a sort of Archangel! Well, you're not. You're not anything I thought you—not good nor kind nor honorable nor truthful—not anything but just a rather paltry sort of liar. You're not even loyal to her. I think I could respect you more if you were. But I am James Eustis's girl—and that's my salvation, Mr. Hunter. Please take your letters. You will send me back mine to-morrow."
He stroked his short gold beard. The color had come back into his face and a new light flashed into his cold blue eyes. He laughed. "Why, you game little angel!" he said delightedly. "Gad, I never thought you had it in you—never. I begin to adore you, Mary Virginia, upon my soul I do! Now listen to reason, my too-good child, and don't be so puritanical. You've got to take folks as they are and not as you'd like them to be, you know. Men are not angels, no, nor women, either. You must learn to be charitable—a virtue very good people seldom practice and never properly appreciate." And he added, leaning lower: "Mary Virginia! Give me another chance ... you won't be sorry, Ladybird."
But she stood unmoved, stonily silent, holding out the letters. And when he still ignored this silent insistence, she thrust them into his hands and left him.
Mary Virginia was to go back to school the next night. All day she waited for her letters. Instead came a note and a huge bunch of violets. The note said he couldn't allow those precious letters which meant so much to him to pass even into her hands who had written them. When he could summon up the courage, he would presently destroy them himself. And she had treated him with great harshness, and wouldn't she be a good little girl and let him see her, if only for a few minutes, before she went away?
Mary Virginia tore up the note and returned the violets by way of answer.
When she returned to school, the superioress regretted that she had been allowed to visit Mrs. Baker again, because too much gaiety wasn't good for her, and she was falling off in her studies. The other girls said she had lost all her looks, for in truth she was wan and peaked and hollow-eyed. Seventeen suffers frightfully, when it suffers at all. Eighteen enjoys its blighted affection, revels in its broken heart, would like to crochet a black edging on its immortal soul, and wouldn't exchange its secret sorrow for a public joy. Nineteen is convalescent—pride would come to its rescue even if life itself did not beguile it into being happy.