“Well, more or less,—and the general fickleness of the sex.”
“General fick—! And you, having seen Florence, let him go on thinking so?”
“But I didn't know Miss Kenby was the lady he meant. If you'd only told me it was for her you wanted news of him—”
“Stupid, you might have guessed! But I think it's about time he had some news of her. He ought to know she wasn't actuated by any such paltry, childish motive.”
“By George, I agree with you!” cried Larcher, with a sudden energy. “If you could see the effect on the man, of that false impression, Miss Kenby! I don't mean to say that his state of mind is entirely due to that; he had causes enough before. But it needed only that to take away all consolation, to stagger his faith, to kill his interest in life.”
“Has it made him so bitter?” asked Florence, sadly.
“I shouldn't call the effect bitterness. He has too lofty a mind for strong resentment. That false impression has only brought him to the last stage of indifference. I should say it was the finishing touch to making his life a wearisome drudgery, without motive or hope.”
Florence sighed deeply.
“To think that he could believe such a thing of Florence,” put in Edna. “I'm sure I couldn't. Could you, Tom?”
“When a man's in love, he doesn't see things in their true proportions,” said Larcher, authoritatively. “He exaggerates both the favors and the rebuffs he gets, both the kindness and the coldness of the woman. If he thinks he's ill-treated, he measures the supposed cause by his sufferings. As they are so great, he thinks the woman's cruelty correspondingly great. Nobody will believe such good things of a woman as the man who loves her; but nobody will believe such bad things if matters go wrong.”