layed with me most abominably. The world was right when it called you a
heartless flirt, and said that you were too cold to care for anything
save pleasure and admiration. I thought I knew you better, more fool I!
But the world was right and I was wrong."

"I don't think that we need discuss my character," said Elisabeth. She
was very angry with herself that she had placed herself in such a
position that any man dared to sit in judgment upon her; but even then
she could not elevate Cecil into the object of her indignation.

He went on like a querulous child. "It is desperately hard on me that
you have treated me in this way! You might have snubbed me at once if
you had wished to do so, and not have made me a laughing-stock in the
eyes of the world. I made no secret of the fact that I intended to marry
you; I talked about it to everybody; and now everybody will laugh at me
for having been your dupe."

So he had boasted to his friends of the fortune he was going to annex,
and had already openly plumed himself upon securing her money! Elisabeth
understood perfectly, and was distinctly amused. She wondered if he
would remember to remind her how she was going to elevate him by her
influence, or if the loss of her money would make him forget even to
simulate sorrow at the loss of herself.

"I don't know what I shall do," he continued, with tears of vexation in
his eyes; "everybody is expecting our engagement to be announced, and I
can not think what excuses I shall invent. A man looks such a fool when
he has made too sure of a woman!"

"Doubtless. But that isn't the woman's fault altogether."

"Yes; it is. If the woman hadn't led him on, the man wouldn't have made
sure of her. You have been unutterably cruel to me--unpardonably cruel;
and I will never forgive you as long as I live."

Elisabeth winced at this--not at Cecil's refusal to forgive her, but at
the thought that she had placed herself within the reach of his
forgiveness. But she was not penitent--she was only annoyed. Penitence
is the last experience that comes to strong-willed, light-hearted
people, such as Elisabeth; they are so sure they are right at the time,
and they so soon forget about it afterward, that they find no interval
for remorse. Elisabeth was beginning to forgive herself for having
fallen for a time from her high ideal, because she was already beginning
to forget that she had so fallen; life had taught her many things, but
she took it too easi