“Well, no; not just yet. She has got some idea that it would prejudice her claim if it was known.”
“Then you have broken it off?”
“Rather not. I have agreed to keep it private a little longer.”
“In fact,” said Cyril, with slow scorn, “you set out to end an anomalous state of things, and then agree to perpetuate it. You bind yourself and leave her free, though it’s perfectly clear that she is merely keeping you on as a last resource in case she loses Michael.”
“It’s nothing of the kind,” said Usk. “She has no thought of Michael—she told me so herself.”
“You are in love with love,” said Cyril bitterly, “and honour, and self-sacrifice, and all the other things of which Miss Steinherz knows no more than she does of good taste. Don’t you see the girl’s fooling you?”
“It may look like that to you, but you don’t know her as I do. She’s playing for a great stake, and she shall have her chance. I won’t let her be able to say that she would have won if I had not baulked her. She won’t win, of course, but at least it won’t be my fault, and she will leave off thinking about it, and we shall be all right.”
“She is nothing but an adventuress who can’t make up her mind to burn her boats.”
Usk turned very white. “You have no right to say that of the lady who has promised to marry me,” he said.
“I beg your pardon; I ought not to have thought aloud. It is a bad habit that has grown on me of late. My dear Usk, if she had promised to marry you I should see daylight. As it is, she may have promised and she may not. Can you assert a promise if the lady sees fit to deny it?”