"Good-bye!"
And he turned away, as if to walk off alone.
"Where are you going?" asked Bernard, stopping him.
"I don't know--to the hotel, anywhere. To try to get used to what you
have told me."
"Don't try too hard; it will come of itself," said Bernard.
"We shall see!"
And Gordon turned away again.
"Do you prefer to go alone?"
"Very much--if you will excuse me!"
"I have asked you to excuse a greater want of ceremony!" said Bernard,
smiling.
"I have not done so yet!" Gordon rejoined; and marching off, he mingled
with the crowd.
Bernard watched him till he lost sight of him, and then, dropping into
the first empty chair that he saw, he sat and reflected that his friend
liked it quite as little as he had feared.
CHAPTER XXVI
Bernard sat thinking for a long time; at first with a good deal of
mortification--at last with a good deal of bitterness. He felt angry
at last; but he was not angry with himself. He was displeased with poor
Gordon, and with Gordon's displeasure. He was uncomfortable, and he was
vexed at his discomfort. It formed, it seemed to him, no natural part of
his situation; he had had no glimpse of it in the book of fate where he
registered on a fair blank page his betrothal to a charming girl.
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