CHAPTER XVI
PRIDE PAYS THE PRICE
The Colonel was playing on his violin as Betty entered the sitting-room, and what he had chosen was the sad old air of “Love Not, Love Not, Ye Hapless Sons of Men.” He laid down his violin, and noticed that Betty’s face was pale, in spite of the sharp winter air, and that she spoke with suppressed fury in her voice.
“Grandfather,” she said, “it is all over between Mr. Fortescue and me. Please don’t ask me about it. We didn’t disagree about a trifle, but about something important. We are perfectly friendly, and mean to keep so, because we don’t want the people in the county talking about us and worrying us with questions. But it is all over, quite over.”
The Colonel started and studied Betty closely. He knew the resolute character, the stubborn pride, that lay beneath all of Betty’s frivolities. She could do things as foolish as any girl of her age, but she could suffer more than most. The Colonel sighed as he looked at her pale, unsmiling face, her eyes full of angry light. He understood the sharp pain of those who have not learned the awful lesson of life, the haughty attitude of the young who have never known defeat, the sufferings of mortified pride and wounded vanity, and, above all, he had an inward conviction that Betty in her heart loved Fortescue. Man-like, the Colonel was not so sure of Fortescue, and a resentment, grim and stern, rose within him. Until the young officer appeared, Betty had been quite happy and satisfied at Holly Lodge. In time, she would have married some one in the county perhaps, and would have led that peaceful life on the sunny side of the wall, which only the quiet lives know. But with Fortescue’s appearance had come the disturbing vision of a possible return to Rosehill, of a life in the great outside world, going from place to place, of the breaking of all the old ties. Betty had asked him not to question her, but the Colonel felt justified in asking precisely one question.
“Elizabeth, has Mr. Fortescue acted dishonorably?” he inquired, straightening up his old figure, still soldierly.
“No,” replied Betty promptly. “Mr. Fortescue couldn’t do anything dishonorable.”
“I am glad to hear it,” answered the Colonel grimly. “If he had, I should have felt called upon to chastise him according to the code in which I was reared and have lived and shall die.”
Betty’s heart was quivering, her pride was up in arms, the whole world seemed full of tears; but when the Colonel talked about chastising Fortescue’s young strength, her sense of humor overwhelmed her pain, and she suddenly laughed a little. She did not tell the Colonel the cause of her ripple of laughter, and in another minute her eyes grew sombre and her heart once more hardened against Fortescue.