“Poor Una,” he said, “how little you understand! Do you think I am such a cad as to accept such an offer as that? I love you and want you to be happy, not miserable as you would certainly be if you were engaged to a man you had to ‘try to like.’ Thank you for the offer all the same. It will comfort me a little to remember that at any rate you felt kindly towards me. It is no use saying any more. My dream is over, and I shall have to bear the awakening as well as I can. A fellow cannot expect to have everything his own way. I don’t want to whine. Shall we go back to the house?”
“In a minute—one minute—only tell me first that you forgive me, and if there is nothing at all that I can do to help you, and show how wretchedly, wretchedly sorry I am!”
“Forgive you?” he repeated sadly. “I love you, Una. I can forgive you, I expect, a good deal more easily than you will forgive yourself. Yes, there is something you can do—if you ever discover that another poor fellow is in love with you—and you are the sort of girl whom men will love—remember me and spare him this experience. Don’t go on being ‘nice’ to him. That kind of niceness is the worst form of cruelty.”
I hung my head and could not answer. To think that “that boy,” as I had contemptuously called him, should have behaved in such a manly, generous fashion! I felt utterly ashamed and despicable. It was he who is a thousand times too good for me!
Chapter Nineteen.
We were very silent driving home in the brougham, and I refused to go into Lorna’s room, as I always did before going to bed, saying that I was too tired to talk. She looked anxious, but did not try to persuade me. I afterwards learnt that she went to Wallace instead, and sat up with him for the greater part of the night.
I lay wide awake tossing and crying until five o’clock, when I fell asleep, and did not wake until nine. Lorna did not come to see me, and, though I dreaded her coming, I felt miserable because she stayed away. Every single morning she had come into my room and hugged and kissed me, and we had walked down to breakfast arm-in-arm. She must have been very, very angry to omit that ceremony!
I took a long time to dress, for I wanted Wallace to be safely started on his rounds before appearing downstairs, and at last, just as I was feeling that I could not respectably linger another moment, the door opened, and there, at last, stood Lorna.