“We have all been made fools of,” I answered.
“I consider that you have been the worst treated,” she said, with a little laugh.
“Why do you think so?”
“Because I can’t imagine anything more mortifying than to be jilted.”
“My dear Theresa, you are labouring under an afflicting delusion. I have not been jilted. I don’t say I have been well treated; for Conny ought never to have permitted me to express my admiration for her face—an admiration,” I added, emphatically, gazing at her, steadily, “which I still preserve, absolutely indifferent as she is to me—she ought never to have encouraged me, I say, when she was all the time engaged to her clerk. But I have observed, several times, and will repeat the observation once more, that I forgive her. I forgive her entirely—without reservation—sans arrière pensée—which, I take it upon myself to say, would be impossible had I ever loved her. You would be amazed were you to know with what cold-blooded unconcern I received the news of her elopement. My sympathy was for her parents; not a pang of any kind or description visited me for myself.”
“I daresay she knew how completely you mistook your feelings.... Shall we go into the grounds. This room is very close.”
“With pleasure,” said I, and forth we strolled.
A warm August evening it was, but not untempered with cool draughts of air, which stirred the flowers from time to time and set the stray hairs about Theresa’s forehead dancing.
I admired her more than ever I had admired Conny. My admiration for our golden cousin had been immediate, but it had attained its full growth at once and never afterwards increased. It was otherwise with Theresa. I had begun by detesting her. Afterwards, when I found her womanly, the pleasure I had taken in watching her gained a new force day by day; and now, on this calm evening, I found myself regarding her in a manner which, but that it was qualified by the profound compliment that glistened in my eyes, she might have thought highly impertinent.
What we talked about as we strolled to and fro, I almost forget. I have a faint recollection of some unwilling laughter being wrung from her by my reference to the reception she had vouchsafed me at Thistlewood, and by a somewhat comical description of the state of my mind on that day and on the night that followed. I can also recall that she made various efforts to prove me fickle because of the change that had come over me respecting Conny, charges which I believe I rebutted with considerable ingenuity, considering that I was obliged to be sophistical to clear myself, and that she was extremely shrewd and logical in her reasoning. Further I can recollect that I was impressed with the idea that she found much pleasure in my society. I said to her “It is an understood thing that you are to remain for some time at Grove End.”