"Do you mean," she inquires, slowly, her cheeks paling to the whiteness of snowdrops blowing, "that you think I gave him up because I wanted to be a grand lady—because I wanted to have all these fine things" (looking round at the flowering gardens, at the broad lake, at the stately house shimmering in the moonshine) "belonging to me?"
Still he holds his peace.
"Is that what you meant?" she repeats, urgently.
"I meant," he says, looking up, his eyes flashing with a hard, metallic gleam, "that you thought a rich man a better investment than a poor one, and, being equally and conveniently indifferent to both, you thought it wisest to select the former."
"If such is your opinion of me," she says, turning away indignantly, "I don't wonder at your being in such a hurry to be rid of me!"
He looks askance at her out of the corners of his eyes. She has hidden her face in her hands, but by the panting breast and heaved white shoulder he sees that she is weeping—that a storm of sobs is shaking her childish frame.
"I am in a hurry to be rid of you!" he says, harshly, steeling himself against her. "From a woman who could throw a man over with the deliberate, cold-blooded artlessness you have done, one may well sing 'Te Deum' for being rescued in time."
She flings up her little head proudly, and the dusk splendour of her eyes blazes through great tears. "Listen to me!" she says, laying hold of his arm with one small burning hand. "I am a bad girl, I know, but I am not the calculating, mercenary wretch you take me for. I tell you honestly that the first day I came here—I had never been staying at a great house before—I thought it must be pleasant to live in large rooms, and have gilt and ormolu and fine pictures about one, and to have carriages and horses and servants, and not to be obliged to think twice before one spent sixpence; and I thought, too" (her long neck droops, and she blushes painfully as she makes the confession), "what a pity it was that I was already engaged, for that otherwise, as I was pretty, you might have taken a fancy to me——" She stops, choked with maiden shame. Upon his averted face an enduring flush, like a hectic autumn leaf's, burns red and angry.
"But as soon as I saw you, almost," she continues, commanding her tears with great difficulty—"as soon as you spoke to me, all such thoughts went out of my head. I don't know why they did," she says, simply. "You were not particularly pleasant or civil; I did not think you good-looking, and you gave me the idea of being ill-tempered; but" (with a sigh) "one cannot reason about those sort of things. I began to think so much about what you were, that I forgot to remember what you had."
He makes no comment upon her confession.