“Of course you don’t know me,” she said quickly. “Does any man know any woman, I wonder?”
“They think they do,” he stated doggedly; “and that amounts to the same thing.”
His thoughts reverted for an uncomfortable instant to Wesley Elliot and Fanny. It was only too easy to see through Fanny.
“Most of them are simple souls, and thank heaven for it!”
His tone was fervently censorious.
She smiled understandingly.
“Perhaps I ought to tell you further that a rich man—not a millionaire; but rich enough—actually did ask me to marry him, and I refused.”
“H’mph!”
“But,” she added calmly, “I think I should have married him, if I had not had money left me first—before he asked me, I mean. I knew all along that what I had determined to do, I could do best alone.”
He stared at her from under gathered brows. He still felt that curious mixture of shame and anger burning hotly within.