He overtook her in a few quick strides, and laid an entreating hand on her arm. “Miss Lily–don’t hurry away like that. You’re beastly hard on a fellow; but if you don’t mind speaking the truth I don’t see why you shouldn’t allow me to do the same.”
She had paused a moment with raised brows, drawing away instinctively from his touch, though she made no effort to evade his words.
“I was under the impression,” she rejoined, “that you had done so without waiting for my permission.”
“Well–why shouldn’t you hear my reasons for doing it, then? We’re neither of us such new hands that a little plain speaking is going to hurt us. I’m all broken up on you: there’s nothing new in that. I’m more in love with you than I was this time last year; but I’ve got to face the fact that the situation is changed.”
She continued to confront him with the same air of ironic composure. “You mean to say that I’m not as desirable a match as you thought me?”
“Yes; that’s what I do mean,” he answered resolutely. “I won’t go into what’s happened. I don’t believe the stories about you–I don’t want to believe them. But they’re there, and my not believing them ain’t going to alter the situation.”
She flushed to her temples, but the extremity of her need checked the retort on her lip and she continued to face him composedly. “If they are not true,” she said, “doesn’t that alter the situation?”
He met this with a steady gaze of his small stock-taking eyes, which made her feel herself no more than some superfine human merchandise. “I believe it does in novels; but I’m certain it don’t in real life. You know that as well as I do: if we’re speaking the truth, let’s speak the whole truth. Last year I was wild to marry you, and you wouldn’t look at me: this year–well, you appear to be willing. Now, what has changed in the interval? Your situation, that’s all. Then you thought you could do better; now–-”
“You think you can?” broke from her ironically.
“Why, yes, I do: in one way, that is.” He stood before her, his hands in his pockets, his chest sturdily expanded under its vivid waistcoat. “It’s this way, you see: I’ve had a pretty steady grind of it these last years, working up my social position. Think it’s funny I should say that? Why should I mind saying I want to get into society? A man ain’t ashamed to say he wants to own a racing stable or a picture gallery. Well, a taste for society’s just another kind of hobby. Perhaps I want to get even with some of the people who cold-shouldered me last year–put it that way if it sounds better. Anyhow, I want to have the run of the best houses; and I’m getting it too, little by little. But I know the quickest way to queer yourself with the right people is to be seen with the wrong ones; and that’s the reason I want to avoid mistakes.”
Miss Bart continued to stand before him in a silence that might have expressed either mockery or a half-reluctant respect for his candour, and after a moment’s pause he went on: “There it is, you see. I’m more in love with you than ever, but if I married you now I’d queer myself for good and all, and everything I’ve worked for all these years would be wasted.”
She received this with a look from which all tinge of resentment had faded. After the tissue of social falsehoods in which she had so long moved it was refreshing to step into the open daylight of an avowed expediency.
“I understand you,” she said. “A year ago I should have been of use to you, and now I should be an encumbrance; and I like you for telling me so quite honestly.” She extended her hand with a smile.
Again the gesture had a disturbing effect upon Mr. Rosedale’s self-command. “By George, you’re a dead game sport, you are!” he exclaimed; and as she began once more to move away, he broke out suddenly–”Miss Lily–stop. You know I don’t believe those stories–I believe they were all got up by a woman who didn’t hesitate to sacrifice you to her own convenience–-“