'You need trouble yourself with no assurance, my friend. Let us understand each other now. I am not now supposing that you can fly back again. You have found your perch, and you must settle on it like a good domestic barn-door fowl.' Again he scowled. If she were too hard upon him he would certainly turn upon her. 'No; you will not fly back again now;--but was I, or was I not, justified when you came to Killancodlem in thinking that my lover had come there?'
'How can I tell? It is my own justification I am thinking of.'
'I see all that. But we cannot both be justified. Did you mean me to suppose that you were speaking to me words in earnest when there,--sitting in that very spot,--you spoke to me of your love.'
'Did I speak of my love?'
'Did you speak of your love! And now, Silverbridge,--for if there be an English gentleman on earth I think you are one,--as a gentleman tell me this. Did you not even tell your father that I should be your wife? I know you did.'
'Did he tell you?'
'Men such as you and he, who cannot even lie with your eyelids, who will not condescend to cover up a secret by a moment of feigned inanimation, have many voices. He did tell me; but he broke no confidence. He told me, but did not mean to tell me. Now you also have told me.'
'I did. I told him so. And then I changed my mind.'
'I know you changed your mind. Men often do. A pinker pink, a whiter white,--a finger that will press you just half an ounce the closer,--a cheek that will consent to let itself come just a little nearer-!'
'No; no; no! It was because Isabel had not easily consented to such approaches!'
'Trifles such as these will do it;--and some such trifles have done it with you. It would be beneath me to make comparisons where I might seem to be the gainer. I grant her beauty. She is very lovely. She has succeeded.'
'I have succeeded.'
'But;--I am justified, and you are condemned. Is it not so? Tell me like a man.'
'You are justified.'
'And you are condemned? When you told me that I should be your wife, and then told your father the same story, was I to think it all meant nothing? Have you deceived me?'
'I did not mean it.'
'Have you deceived me? What; you cannot deny it, and yet have not the manliness to own it to a poor woman who can only save herself from humiliation by extorting the truth from you!'
'Oh, Mabel, I am so sorry that it should be so.'
'I believe you are,--with a sorrow that will last till she is again sitting close to you. Nor, Silverbridge, do I wish it to be longer. No;--no;--no. Your fault after all has not been great. You deceived, but did not mean to deceive me?'
'Never, never.'
'And I fancy you have never known how much you bore about with you. Your modesty has been so perfect that you have not thought of yourself as more than other men. You have forgotten that you have had in your hand the disposal to some one woman of a throne in Paradise.'
'I don't suppose you thought of that.'
'But I did. Why should I tell falsehoods now. I have determined that you should know everything,--but I could better confess to you my own sins, when I had shown that you too have not been innocent.
Not think of it! Do not men think of high titles and great wealth and power and place? And if men, why should not women? Do not men try to get them;--and are they not even applauded for their energy? A woman has but one way to try. I tried.'
'I do not think it was well for that.'
'How shall I answer that without a confession which even I am not hardened enough to make? In truth, Silverbridge, I have never loved you.'
He drew himself up slowly before he answered her, and gradually assumed a look very different from that easy boyish smile which was customary to him. 'I am glad of that,' he said.
'Why are you glad?'
'Now I can have no regrets.'
'You need have none. It was necessary to me that I should have my little triumph;--that I should show you that I knew how far you had wronged me! But now I wish you should know everything. I have never loved you.'