"You do not deny it," he cried angrily.
"I neither admit nor deny," said Mollie, as she also arose and stood before him with a regal air. "I simply say that you have—as indeed no one else has—the right to question me in the way you have done. Whatever concerns you personally, you, of course, have a right to know about. I have answered you frankly and as kindly as I knew how, and that must settle it. Now"—her manner suddenly changing to her old-time graciousness, and holding out her hand, with a charming smile—"shall we drop it and still be the best of friends?"
He regarded her in silence for a moment. She was inexpressibly lovely, and would have disarmed a savage; but his pride was wounded, and his heart was filled with rage at the thought of being balked in his determination to subjugate her to his will.
"No!" he said shortly, "there is no meaning for me in the word 'friend' where you are concerned."
He turned abruptly from her as he ceased and walked from the room and the house, taking no pains to close the door after him.
Mollie stood where he had left her for a full minute, a grave expression on her fair face. Then she drew a long, deep breath, and her lips curled with contempt:
"He could not stand the test—he is not worthy to be my friend, even," she murmured; "he is selfish to the core, for, since he cannot have just what he wants, he repudiates all, turns and cruelly wounds the one he has pretended to love. It is himself he loves—not me; and I am glad that everything is finally settled between us. Still, I am sadly disappointed in my old-time friend."
She sighed regretfully as she thought of the failure he was making of life, for he had had every advantage, and had he appreciated and improved his opportunities a brilliant career might have been his, while now he was only an idle seeker after pleasure.
Then, in striking contrast to this pampered young man of fortune, there arose before her the sunburned, bareheaded, coarsely clad lad to whom she owed her life, and who, by his own efforts, had overcome every obstacle and distanced Philip Wentworth at college.
Clifford Faxon might never rise socially to the position that was accorded Philip in the fashionable world—he might never acquire great wealth, but she felt that he had already attained that which was far more grand and desirable than fame or fortune—a noble manhood and the pursuit of some worthy object in life. In the midst of these reflections Mollie blushed rosy red.