"
Some foolish impulse roused the girl to reply. She defended the very
man against whom all the evening she had been unreasonably bitter. "You
have no right to abuse him. He is your people's guest and a very
distinguished man, and you are only a foolish boy."
He paled below his sunburn. Now he believed the truth of the horrid
suspicion which had been fastening on his mind. "But--but," he
stammered, "the chap isn't a gentleman, you know."
The words quickened her vexation. A gentleman! The cant word, the
fetish of this ring of idle aristocrats--she knew the hollowness of the
whole farce. The democrat in her made her walk off with erect head and
bright eyes, leaving a penitent boy behind; while all the time a sick,
longing heart drove her to the edge of tears.
The days dragged slowly for the girl. The brightness had gone out of
the wide, airy landscape, and the warm August days seemed chill. She
hated herself for the wrong impression she had left on the boy Arthur's
mind, but she was too proud to seek to erase it; she could but trust to
his honour for silence. If Lewis heard--the thought was too terrible to
face! He would resign himself to the inevitable; she knew the temper of
the man. Good form was his divinity, and never by word or look would he
attempt to win another man's betrothed. She must see him and learn the
truth: but he came no more to Glenavelin, and Etterick was a far cry for
a girl's fancy.
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