I'm not blaming you."
"WHAT is not my fault?" he persisted with patient gentleness.
Suddenly she confronted him. There were the traces of tears
upon her lashes, and serenity had fled from her face.
"It is a mistake--a blunder," she began, hurriedly. "I take
it all upon my own shoulders. I was the one who did it.
I should have had more judgment--more good sense!"
"You are not telling me, are you," he asked with gravity,
"that you are sorry you married me?"
"Is either of us glad?" she retorted, breathlessly.
"What is there to be glad about? You are bored to death--you
confess it. And I--well, it is not what I thought
it would be. I deceived myself. I do not reproach you."
"No, you keep saying that," he observed, with gloomy
slowness of utterance. "But what is it you reproach
yourself with, then? We might as well have it out."
"Yes," she assented, with a swift reversion to calm.
Her eyes met his with a glance which had in it an
implacable frankness. "I married one man because he
would be able to make me a Duchess. I married another
because he had eighty thousand a year. That is the kind
of beast I am. There is bad blood in me. You know
my father; that is quite enough. I am his daughter;
that explains everything."
The exaggeration of her tone and words produced a curious
effect upon him.
Pages:
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473