It seems to me as if you had
been--shall I say it?--trying to give me a chance. Is that so?" She
dropped her eyes and did not answer.
"You found it was no use! Well, I thank you for trying. It's curious to
think that I once had your trust, your regard, and now I haven't it. You
don't mind my remembering that I had? It'll be some little consolation,
and I believe it will be some help. I know I can't retrieve the past now.
It is too late. It seems too preposterous--perfectly lurid--that I could
have been going to tell you what a tangle I'd got myself in, and to ask
you to help untangle me. I must choke in the infernal coil, but I'd like
to have the sweetness of your pity in it--whatever it is."
She put out her hand. "Whatever it is, I do pity you; I said that."
"Thank you." He kissed the band she gave him and went.
He had gone on some such terms before; was it now for the last time? She
believed it was. She felt in herself a satiety, a fatigue, in which his
good looks, his invented airs and poses, his real trouble, were all alike
repulsive. She did not acquit herself of the wrong of having let him
think she might yet have liked him as she once did; but she had been
honestly willing to see whether she could.
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