“Yes, but I have never before known you to treat me in this manner,” she answered with sudden hauteur. “The other day you declared your intention of severing our friendship, but I did not believe you.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew that we loved each other.”
“No,” he said in a hard tone, “do not let us speak of love. Speak of it to those men who dance attendance upon you everywhere, but with me, Claudia, be as frank as I am with you.”
“Dudley! It is cruel of you to speak like this!” she cried with a sudden outburst of emotion, for she now saw quite plainly that the power she once exerted over him had disappeared.
Chisholm had been sadly disillusioned. During the past few weeks the bitter truth had gradually been forced upon him. Instead of remaining a real, dignified, high-minded woman of unblemished integrity, Claudia Nevill had grown callous and artificial, and in other ways hostile to true womanhood. But Dudley had always admired her, and once she had been his ideal.
He had admired her simplicity of heart. Unquestionably that is a great charm in a woman, though not a charm so illuminating as integrity, because it consists more in the ignorance of evil, and, consequently, of temptation, than in the possession of principle strong enough to withstand both. In the days before her marriage her simplicity of heart was the child of that unruffled serenity of soul which suspects no mischief to be lurking beneath the fair surface of things—which trusts, confides and is happy in this confidence, because it has never been deceived, and because it has never learned that most fatal of all arts, the mystery of deceiving others.
But all was now changed. She was no longer the Claudia of old. She had degenerated into a smart, brilliant woman, full of arts and subterfuges, with no thoughts beyond her engagements, her toilettes, and her vainglorious triumphs.
“I have only spoken what I feel, Claudia!” exclaimed the man still standing before her. “I have no power to compel you to heed my warning.”
“Oh, do let us drop the subject, my dear Dudley!” she cried impatiently. “This lecture of yours upon my duty towards society may surely be continued on another occasion. Let us go along to the Duchess’s. As I’ve already said, the House has entirely spoilt you.”