Lady Marabout's heart throbbed quick and fast as she put the momentous question, with an agitation for which she would have blushed before her admirably nonchalante niece; but the tug of war was coming, and if Goodwood should be lost!
"You have accepted him?" she asked again.
"No! I—refused him."
The delicate rose went out of the Hon. Val's cheeks for once, and she breathed quickly and shortly.
Goodwood was not lost then!
Was she sorry—was she glad? Lady Marabout hardly knew; like Wellington, she felt the next saddest thing after a defeat is a victory.
"But you love him, Valencia?" she asked, half ashamed of suggesting such weakness, to this glorious beauty.
The Hon. Val unclasped her necklet as if it were a chain, choking her, and her face grew white and set: the coldest will feel on occasion, and all have some tender place that can wince at the touch.
"Perhaps; but such folly is best put aside at once. Certainly I prefer him to others, but to accept him would have been madness, absurdity. I told him so!"
"You told him so! If you had the heart to do so, Valencia, he has not lost much in losing you!" burst in Lady Marabout, her indignation getting the better of her judgment, and her heart, as usual, giving the coup de grace to her reason. "I am shocked at you! Every tender-hearted woman feels regret for affection she is obliged to repulse, even when she does not return it; and you, who love this man——"