"SHALL WE BREAK THIS BETROTHAL, THAT WAS MADE ONLY IN FUN?"
The thought was like an inspiration to Jay Gardiner. He would go to
Sally and ask her to break this hateful engagement; and surely she would
be too proud to hold him to a betrothal from which he so ardently
desired to be set free.
The following day he put his plan into execution. It was early in the
afternoon when he entered the hotel, and going at once to the
reception-room, he sent up his card. He had not long to wait for Miss
Sally. He had scarcely taken two or three turns across the floor ere she
floated into the room with both hands outstretched, an eager smile on
her red lips.
He took one of the outstretched hands, bowed ever it coldly, and hastily
dropped it.
"I was expecting you this afternoon," said Sally, archly, pretending not
to notice his constraint, "and here you are at last."
"Miss Pendleton," he began, stiffly, "would you mind getting your hat
and taking a little stroll with me? I have something to talk over with
you, and I do not wish all those people on the porch, who are listening
to us even now, to hear."
"I would be delighted," answered Sally. "Come on. My hat is right out
there on a chair on the veranda."
He followed her in silence. It was not until they were some little
distance from the hotel that he found voice to speak.
"You say you want to talk to your betrothed," laughed the girl, with a
toss of her yellow curls; "but you have maintained an unbroken silence
for quite a time."
"I have been wondering how to begin speaking of the subject which weighs
so heavily on my mind, and I think the best way is to break right into
it."
"Yes," assented Sally; "so do I."
"It is about our betrothal," he began, brusquely. "I want to ask you a
plain, frank question, Miss Pendleton, and I hope you will be equally as
frank with me; and that is, do you consider what you are pleased to call
your betrothal to me, and which I considered at the time only a girlish
prank, actually binding?"
He stopped short in the wooded path they were treading, and looked her
gravely in the face--a look that forced an answer. She was equal to the
occasion.
"Of course I do, Mr. Gardiner," she cried, with a jolly little laugh
that sounded horrible in his ears. "And wasn't it romantic? Just like
one of those stories one reads in those splendid French novels, I
laughed----"
"Pray be serious, Miss Pendleton," cut in Gardiner, biting his lip
fiercely to keep back an angry retort. "This is not a subject for
merriment, I assure you, and I had hoped to have a sensible conversation
with you concerning it--to show each of us a way out of it, if that is
possible."
"I do not wish to be set free, as you phrase it, Mr. Gardiner," she
answered, defiantly. "I am perfectly well pleased to have matters just
as they are, I assure you."
His face paled; the one hope which had buoyed him up died suddenly in
his heart.
Sally Pendleton's face flushed hotly; her eyes fell.
"I will try to win your liking," she replied.
"It is a man's place to win," he said, proudly; "women should be won,"
he added, with much emphasis. "When two people marry without love, they
must run all the risk such a union usually incurs."
"Pardon me, but I may as well speak the truth; you are the last girl on
earth whom I could love. It grieves me to wound you, but it is only just
that you should know the truth. _Now_ will you insist upon carrying out
the contract?"
"As I have told you from the start, my answer will always be the same."
"We will walk back to the hotel," he said, stiffly.
She rose from the mossy log and accompanied him without another word. At
last he broke the silence.
"I am a gentleman," he said, "and am in honor bound to carry out this
contract, if you can not be induced to release me."
"That is the only sensible view for you to take," she said.
He crushed back the angry words that rose to his lips. He had never
disliked a woman before, but he could not help but own to himself that
he hated the girl by his side--the girl whom fate had destined that he
should marry.