Pride was not yet dead.
I could not let her know that I loved her more madly than in the days of our courtship—loved her as might a man who had suffered all the pangs of outrageous fortune, always like his sex, loath to find the cause in himself. No, I would not demean myself to tell her what a wretch I had discovered myself to be, and how my heart hungered for her, until I knew whether some other man stood between us.
There had been several—one I remembered in particular, who had been hard set to win her in those days, a fellow who had given me many a twinge of jealousy by his boasts, until finally I dared put my fate to the test and discovered how I had been fighting phantoms. If it were he now, what agony, what punishment would be mine!
“You are kind, Morgan. You have done much for me to-night. Sometimes I am glad, and then again it makes me sad, and I even wish you had left me there to struggle against my fate, or that it had been some one else who came, a perfect stranger, whom I might reward with gold for serving me,” she said, sadly, almost brokenly.
I did not fancy that—it seemed to take the conceit out of me; plainly I must have been mistaken when I thought she still cared for me.
She would rather it were a stranger to whom she owed her escape—she did not fancy being under obligations to me of all men—surely that was enough to cool me off.
“I hope you won’t trouble yourself about the reward part—you can give me nothing I would care a snap for, except, of course, your gratitude. Men of my stamp don’t do these things for reward, Hildegarde.”
She looked up at me, as though trying to weigh the meaning of my words.
“You are much changed, Morgan,” she said, slowly.
“Naturally so. I have led a misanthropic life for some little time. Things don’t look rosy through smoked glasses.”