e openly."

"And I am to bear it? And it is you that tell me so? Oh, Frank!"

"Let us understand each other, Lizzie. I will not fight him,--that
is, with pistols; nor will I attempt to thrash him. It would be
useless to argue whether public opinion is right or wrong; but public
opinion is now so much opposed to that kind of thing, that it is out
of the question. I should injure your position and destroy my own. If
you mean to quarrel with me on that score, you had better say so."

Perhaps at that moment he almost wished that she would quarrel with
him, but she was otherwise disposed. "Oh, Frank," she said, "do not
desert me."

"I will not desert you."

"You feel that I am ill-used, Frank?"

"I do. I think that his conduct is inexcusable."

"And there is to be no punishment?" she asked, with that strong
indignation at injustice which the unjust always feel when they are
injured.

"If you carry yourself well,--quietly and with dignity,--the world
will punish him."

"I don't believe a bit of it. I am not a Patient Grizel who can
content myself with heaping benefits on those who injure me, and then
thinking that they are coals of fire. Lucy Morris is one of that
sort." Frank ought to have resented the attack, but he did not. "I
have no such tame virtues. I'll tell him to his face what he is.
I'll lead him such a life that he shall be sick of the very name of
necklace."

"You cannot ask him to marry you."

"I will. What, not ask a man to keep his promise when you are engaged
to him? I am not going to be such a girl as that."

"Do you love him, then?"

"Love him! I hate him. I always despised him, and now I hate him."

"And yet you would marry him?"

"Not for worlds, Frank. No. Because you advised me, I thought that
I would do so. Yes, you did, Frank. But for you I would never have
dreamed of taking him. You know, Frank, how it was,--when you told me
of him and wouldn't come to me yourself." Now again she was sitting
close to him and had her hand upon his arm. "No, Frank; even to
please you I could not marry him now. But I'll tell you what I'll do.
He shall ask me again. In spite of those idiots at Richmond he shall
kneel at my feet,--necklace or no necklace; and then,--then I'll tell
him what I think of him. Marry him! I would not touch him with a pair
of tongs." As she said this, she was holding her cousin fast by the
hand.

CHAPTER XXIV

Showing What Frank Greystock Thought About Marriage