“George,” she said, after a long pause, “did you like her very much?”
“Her?” exclaimed the young man, surprised. “Who?”
“Why, the young lady you ran away from. You know very well whom I mean.”
“Like her? Why, I hate her.”
“Yes, perhaps you do now. But I am asking of former years. How long were you engaged to her?”
“Engaged? Let me see, I have been engaged just about—well, not twenty-four hours yet. I was never engaged before. I thought I was, but I wasn’t really.”
Miss Earle shook her head. “You must have liked her very much,” she said, “or you never would have proposed marriage to her. You would never have been engaged to her. You never would have felt so badly when she—”
“Oh, say it out,” said George, “jilted me, that is the word.”
“No, that is not the phrase I wanted to use. She didn’t really jilt you, you know. It was because you didn’t have, or thought you didn’t have, money enough. She would like to be married to you to-day.”
George shuddered.