"It was rather strange the way I found it out," Madge was saying. "Mary Flippin had on the most perfect gown—with all the marks on it of exclusive Fifth Avenue. She was going to the Merriweather ball, and Becky is to be there."
She saw him gather himself together. "It is rather a Cinderella story, isn't it?" he asked, with assumed lightness.
"Yes," she said, "but I thought you'd like to know."
"What if I knew already?"
She laughed and let it go at that. "I'm lonesome, Georgie, talk to me," she said. But he was not in a mood to talk. And at last she sent him away. And when he had gone she sat there a long time and thought about him. There had been a look in his eyes which made her almost sorry. It seemed incredible as she came to think of it that anybody should ever be sorry for Georgie.
II
Since that night with Becky in the garden at Huntersfield George had been torn by conflicting
emotions. He knew himself at last in love. He knew himself beaten at the game by a little shabby girl, and a lanky youth who had been her champion.
He would not acknowledge that the thing was ended, and in the end he had written her a letter. He cried to Heaven that a marriage between her and young Paine would be a crime. "How can you love him, Becky—you are mine."
The letter had been returned unopened. His burning phrases might have been dead ashes for all the good they had done. She had not read them.