"Three months! Good gracious! Why, I thought three minutes was long enough to fall in love!"
"Lily, I am amazed to hear you talk so flippantly! It is plain that it is quite time that you had more settled views of life. Among the new responsibilities on which you are now about to enter I trust that you will learn the solemnity of woman's position in the world, and the deference which she owes to the married state."
Miss Truscott laughed. Her laughter was of rather an hysterical kind, as though it were near akin to tears. But Mrs. Clive was shocked. She regarded Miss Truscott with what she intended to be considered as severe disapprobation. Then, with her most stately air, she rose and left the room. Pausing at the door, however, she delivered herself of a final expression of her opinion.
"Lily, I am disappointed in you. I can only hope that Mr. Ely will not have cause to be disappointed too."
When Miss Truscott was left alone she sat quite still, looking into vacancy. The smile about the corners of her mouth was hardly up to its usual character for sweetness. There was a glitter in her eyes which gave them quite a new expression. Suddenly she leaned her face upon her hands and shivered. It could hardly have been with cold, for the sun was shining and the day was warm. Then she got up, and began pacing restlessly about the room.
"Is it a dream? Is it a dream?" Her hands were clasped with a sort of hysteric energy.
"What does it matter! He has forgotten me! What fools we women are!" She took out a locket which was hidden in the bosom of her dress, and gazed upon the face which it contained.
"Willy!"--how softly she breathed the name--"twelve months since you told me that story with your eyes--twelve months ago! Where have you been this weary time! I suppose it was an incident with you. I have heard those sort of things are incidents with men. What a fool I was to take it seriously! What fools we women are! I ought to have known that it was the fashion with Mr. Summers to love and ride away."
She stood gazing at the portrait. All at once something angered her--some recollection, perhaps, of long ago. She snapped the slender chain to which it was attached, and flung the locket on the floor. As if not content with this degradation of her treasure, she placed her little foot upon it and crushed it beneath her heel.
"What fools we women are!"