Geneviève was sobbing. “If you do love him,” she said, “why do you not marry him? I ask only to go away home. I will never trouble you again!”
“Do you understand me so little?” asked Cicely. “Do you think I could marry a man who I believed cared more for another woman than for me?”
“Do you think so?” said Geneviève, with thoughtlessly selfish eagerness.
“Yes,” said Cicely deliberately, after a moment’s silence. “I do think so. He may not think so himself, just now,” she added in thought, “but I believe it is so.”
Then Geneviève said no more. Her head was in a whirl of feelings which she dared not express. She could scarcely credit her own happiness, she did not know if it were wicked of her to feel happy. She was afraid of seeming to pity Cicely, or even of expressing anything of the admiration and gratitude she could not but be conscious that her cousin deserved. So she sat beside her in silence, crying quietly, till after a time a new idea struck her.
“Cicely,” she said, “what will they all say? Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica, and my aunt. Will they not be very angry?”
“There is no need for Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica to be told much at present,” replied Cicely. “I have talked it over with my cousin. Of course, they must be told it is all at an end with—with me. But they will not be altogether surprised, and things are different now. I am no longer rich.”
She spoke quite simply, but her words stung Geneviève to the quick.
“I had forgotten that,” she exclaimed. “Ah! believe me, I had forgotten it. These last days I have been so unhappy I have forgotten all—since I saw Mr. Fawcett yesterday morning I have had but one thought. Oh! believe me, Cicely, if I had remembered that, I should have gone away without asking—I would indeed!”
Cicely looked at her with a little smile.