"I was just mad and hardly knew what I was doing. It seemed the only way I could give vent to my anger. I tore it into millions of bits."
"What reasons did she give for her outrageous conduct?"
"Well, in some respects it was an awfully nice letter she wrote. She said she admired me as a friend immensely. But she didn't love me as she felt she ought to do, which made her unhappy, and so she thought it best to go away without any fuss, and all that, don't you know."
"And do you believe she still admires you?"
"Why, of course I do. She said so, in fact. I wish I hadn't destroyed her letter. There were some awfully nice sentiments in it, I can assure you."
"Then why were you so angry?"
"Why, because I saw I was up a tree. When a girl you want to marry talks about being a sister to you, and all that, don't you know, it makes one angrier than anything."
"Well, yes, I suppose it does. I'm terribly disappointed, Madeline was a chance in a lifetime."
"But rather smacked of trade, don't you think? You know very well if she'd been an English girl, you wouldn't have considered her for a moment."
"That may be. But since even dukes marry tradesmen's daughters—provided, of course, they hail from across the water—there was no reason why we should turn up our noses."