“Oh, Lucy!”
“And that so long as you were staying there you might as well amuse yourself.”
“Love is no amusement, Lucy—it’s a most fearful trial.”
“But did you ever, when you were daring to make love to me,” she said, suddenly turning on me with amazing fierceness, “even cease writing love letters to her? Tell me that, Mr. Vincent Blacker!”
I groaned; for the truth is I had written more warmly to Mabel Harker all that delightful month at “The French Horn” than usual; from the simple fact that, myself feeling happier, I naturally wished Mabel to share, in a sense, in my joy. So what could I do but groan?
“If we hadn’t found out quite by accident you were engaged,” Lucy went on, “should we have ever found it out from you? Were you making any effort of any sort to free yourself? You were acting an untruth to me all that time. How can I tell you are not acting an untruth to me now?”
“I wasn’t in the least acting an untruth when I said I loved you. How can you say such a thing, Lucy dear?”
“You mustn’t call me by my Christian name,” she answered, pale, and setting her lips tight; and then she was silent again.
“You are very hard on me,” I cried, after a pause, “and I hope you will never live to regret it. What could a man do differently, situate so unfortunately as I was?”
“You should have been perfectly honest and frank. At least, you should have made sure you were off with the old love before you tried to be on with the new.”