Do you think he wouldn't
loathe you, if you do this ghastly thing? Would any real man endure it
for an hour? What do you expect to get but ugly revenge on a man who
never gave anything except friendship?"
"Friendship--friendship-yes, he gave that, but emotion too."
"You think that real men marry women for whom they only have emotion.
You think that he--Carnac Grier--would marry any woman on that basis?
Come, ma'm'selle, the truth! He didn't know he was being married, and
when you told him it was a real marriage he left you at once. You and
yours tricked him--the man you'd never have known if he hadn't saved your
life. You thought that with your beauty--yes, you are beautiful--you'd
conquer him, and that he'd give in, and become a real husband in a real
home. Come now, isn't that it?"
The other did not reply. Her face was alive with memories. The lower
things were flying from it, a spirit of womanhood was living in her--
feebly, but truly, living. She was now conscious of the insanity of her
pursuit of Carnac. For a few moments she stood silent, and then she said
with agitation:
"If I give this up"--she took from her breast the blue document--"he'd be
safe in his election, and he'd marry you: is it not so, ma'm'selle?"
"He'd be safe for his election, but he has never asked me to marry him,
and there are others besides him.--She was thinking of Tarboe.
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