"Perhaps. But didn't you think of me?" He nodded his head. "Didn't you realize it meant my social ruin?" Again he nodded, his mind in a whirl of doubts and fears and furious regrets. "Nobody'll care to marry me now. What do you think Lecompte will say?"
"What the devil has Lecompte to do with it? You're engaged to Norvin
Blake."
"Oh, yes, among the others."
Bernie was too miserable to voice the indignation which such flippancy evoked in him. He merely said:
"Norvin isn't like the others. It's different with him; he compromised you."
"Yes. It was rather nice of him, but do you think he'll care to continue our engagement after this?"
"Oh, he's known about Felicite for a long time. Most of the fellows know. That's what makes it so hard."
This intelligence entirely robbed Myra Nell of words; she stared at her half-brother as if trying to realize that the man who had made this shocking admission was he.
"Do you mean to tell me that your friends have known of this disgrace?" she asked at length.
Bernie nodded. "Of course it seems terrible to you, Myra Nell, for you're innocent and unworldly, and I'm rather a dissipated old chap. But I'm awfully lonely. The men of my own age are successful and busy and they've all left me behind; the young ones don't find me interesting. You see, I don't know anything, I can't do anything, I'm a failure. Nobody cares anything about me, except you and Felicite I found a haven in her society; her faith in me is splendid. To her I'm all that's heroic and fine and manly, so when I'm with her I begin to feel that I'm really all she believes, all that I hoped to be once upon a time. She shares my dreams and I allow myself to believe in her beliefs."