"One thing always strikes me in reading your stories. Your women are
inevitably false and fickle. Perhaps, however, you write from personal
experience of the failings of my sex," she laughed.
Glancing sharply at her, I saw that her eyes did not waver.
"It is true I once knew a woman who proved false and infamous," I
replied, with some emphasis.
"And you avenge yourself by reviling all of us. It is really too bad!"
she said, pouting like a spoiled child.
"By Jove, old fellow," Dick chimed in, "do tell us about your romance!
It would be interesting to know the reason you set your face against all
the fair ones."
But I succeeded in turning the conversation into another channel. I saw
I had intruded upon them, so, making an excuse, I bade them _au revoir_,
and returned to my own book-lined den.
Unlocking a drawer in my writing-table, I took out a packet of letters
that still emitted a stale odour of violets. Then I lit my pipe, and
one by one read them through, pausing and pondering over the
declarations of passionate love they contained. Far into the night I
sat reviewing the romance of bygone days, until I came to the last
letter. It was a cold, formal note, merely a few lines of hurried
scrawl, and read: "You are right. I have been false to you. Think no
more of me. By the time you receive this I shall be on my way to New
York; nevertheless, you will be always remembered by yours unworthily--
Ethel." Bitter memories of the past overwhelmed me; but at last,
growing impatient, and tossing the letters back into the drawer, I
strove to forget. The clock had struck two, and my reading-lamp was
burning low and sputtering when I rose to retire for the night. I
confess that my frame of mind surprised me, inasmuch as I actually found
myself still loving her.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Good afternoon. I hope I don't disturb you."
Looking up from my work, I saw Ethel.
"Not at all. Pray sit down," I said coldly, motioning her to an
armchair. "To what do I owe the honour of this visit?"
She pulled off her long gloves, and let her sealskin cape fall at her
feet, while I put down my pen, and, rising, stood with my back to the
fire.
With her she had brought the odour of violets, the same that I
remembered years ago; the same perfume that always stirred sad memories
within me.
"You don't welcome me very warmly," she said in a disappointed tone, as
she grasped my hand, and looked steadily into my eyes.
"No," I said sternly. "Last night I told you that a woman had
embittered my life. The woman I referred to was yourself."
"Ah," she said, striving to suppress a sob, "Forgive me! I--I was mad
then. I loved you; but I did not apprehend the consequence."
"Love? What nonsense to speak of it, when through your baseness I have
been almost ruined. Think of your actions on the day before you left
me; how you took from that drawer a signed blank cheque, with which you
drew six hundred pounds,--nearly all the money I possessed,--and then
fled with your lover. Is that the way a woman shows her affection?"
Her head was bowed in humiliation.
"Forgive me, Harold," she said, with intense earnestness. "I admit that
I wronged you cruelly, that I discarded the honest love you gave me; but
you--you do not know how weak we women are when temptation is in our
path. Cannot I now make amends?"