“Alas, yes, my generous darling: though you are willing, I am not able to carry out our engagement: that is what I have been explaining. Don’t think it is not as bad for me as for you.”
“As bad for me, as for you,” the blood rushed to Effie’s countenance in a wild flood of indignation and horror. As bad for him as for her! She stood aghast, her eyes fixed upon his, in which there was, could it be? a complaisance, a self-satisfaction mingled with regret.
Fred had not the least conception of the feeling which had moved her. He knew nothing about the revolution made in all her thoughts by the discovery of his ruin, or of her impassioned determination to stand by him, and sacrifice everything to his happiness. No idea of the truth had entered his mind. He was sorry for her disappointment, which indeed was not less to him than to her, though, to be sure, a girl, he knew, always felt it more than a man. But when Effie, in her hurt pride and wounded feeling, uttered a cry of astonishment and dismay, he took it for the appeal of disappointment and replied to it hastily:
“It cannot be helped,” he said. “Do you think it is an easy thing for me to say so? but what can I do? I have given up everything. A man is not like the ladies. I am going back to the studio—to work in earnest, where I used only to play at working. How could I ask you to go there with me, to share such a life? And besides, if I am to do anything, I must devote myself altogether to art. If things were to brighten, then, indeed, you may be sure—— without an hour’s delay!”
She had drawn her hands away, but he recovered possession of one, which he held in his, smoothing and patting it, as if he were comforting a child. A hundred thoughts rushed through her mind as he stood there, smiling at her pathetically, yet not without a touch of vanity, comprehending nothing, without the faintest gleam of perception as to what she had meant, sorry for her, consoling her for her loss, feeling to his heart the value of what she had lost, which was himself.
Her dismay, her consternation, the revulsion of feeling which sent the blood boiling through her veins, were to him only the natural vexation, distress, and disappointment of a girl whose marriage had been close at hand, and was now put off indefinitely. For this—which was so natural—he was anxious to console her. He wanted her to feel it as little as possible—to see that it was nobody’s fault, that it could not be helped. Of all the passionate impulses that had coursed through her veins he knew nothing, nothing! He could not divine them, or understand, even if he had divined.
“At best,” he said, still soothing her, patting her hand, “the postponement must be for an indefinite time. And how can I ask you to waste your youth, dearest Effie? I have done you harm enough already. I came to let you know the real state of affairs—to set you free from your engagements to me, if,” he said, pressing her hand again, looking into her face, “you will accept——”
His face appeared to her like something floating in the air, his voice vibrated and rang about her in circles of sound. She drew her hand almost violently away, and withdrew a little, gazing at him half stupified, yet with a keen impatience and intolerance in her disturbed mind.
“I accept,” she said hoarsely, with a sense of mortification and intense indignant shame, which was stronger than any sensation Effie had ever felt in her life before.
That was what he thought of her; this man for whom she had meant to sacrifice herself! She began hastily to draw off the ring which he had given her from her finger, which, slight as it was, seemed to grow larger with her excitement and tremulousness, and made the operation difficult.