“No, I have not,” he answered humbly, “I have no right to anything; not even to ask you to become my wife.”
She lifted her proud eyes; her lips framed the words that her tongue refused to speak.
“I beg your pardon. I hardly know what I said.”
“It is hardly necessary to tell me that.”
“And you will not write to me?”
“No.”
“I am unhappy enough,” he blundered, “I never thought our happy winter would end like this. I did not mean it to end like this.”
It was ended then. She herself had ended it. He would never hear the new music she was practicing for him; they would not read together the “Essays of Elia” he had given her last week; she could never tell him—
“I must catch the next train; Roger and I have a farewell dinner in New York to-day. Old fellow, I’m sorry to leave him. I suppose when I return I shall find him rusting out in Bensalem; for he’s determined to go there against all the arguments I can bring up. Good-bye, Marion.”
“Good-bye,” she said, again, allowing her fingers to stay a moment in his hand.