This long speech called for a reply, and Frederic said, “You would not care to come back again, would you?”
“Why, yes,” returned Isabel; “I would rather do that than nothing.”
For a time there was silence, while Frederic fidgeted in his chair and Isabel fidgeted in hers, until at last the former said:
“I owe you an explanation, Isabel, and I have come to make it. Do you remember our conversation in the parlor, and to what it was apparently tending, when we were interrupted by Alice?”
“Yes,” replied Isabel, “and I have thought of it so often, wondering if you were in earnest, or if you were merely trifling with my feelings.”
“I certainly had no intention of trifling with you,” returned Frederic: “neither do I know as I was really in earnest. At all events it is fortunate for us both that Alice came in as she did;” and having said so much, Frederic could now look calmly upon a face which changed from a serene Summer sky to a dark, lightning-laden thunder-cloud as he told her the story he had came to tell.
In her terrible disappointment, Isabel so far forgot herself as to lose her temper entirely, and Frederic, while listening to her as she railed at him for what she called his perfidy, wondered how he ever could have thought her womanly or good.
“It was false that Marian was living, and had taken care of him when sick,” she said. “He could not impose that story upon her, and he only wished to do it because he fancied that he was in some way pledged to her and wished for an excuse, but he might have saved himself the trouble, for even had Alice not appeared she should have told him No. She liked him once, she would admit, but there was nothing like living beneath the same roof to make one person tire of another, and even if she were not disgusted with him before, she should have become so while taking care of him in New York, and so she wrote to Agnes Gibson, who, she heard, had spread the news that she was engaged, though she had no authority for doing so, but it was just like the tattling mischief-maker!”
“Are you through?” Frederic coolly asked, when she had finished speaking. “If you are I will consider our interview at an end.”
Isabel did not reply and he arose to go, saying to her as he reached the door, “I did not come here to quarrel with you, Bell, I wish still to be your friend, and if you are ever in trouble come to me as to a brother. Marian will, I trust, be with me then; but she will be kind to you, for ’tis her nature.”