“Surely it can’t be so bad, Aunt Varina!”
“Think how your father has gone into debt on your account! All the clothes you have bought—the bills at this hotel—the expenses of the wedding! Thousands and thousands of dollars!”
“Oh, I didn’t want all that!” wailed Sylvia.
“But you did! You insisted on coming here to New York, where a wedding would cost several times as much as at home! You have come out before all the world as Mr. van Tuiver’s fiancée—and think of the scandal and the disgrace, if you were to break it off! And poor Mr. van Tuiver—what a figure he’d cut! And when he loves you so!”
Sylvia’s sobbing had ceased during this outburst. When she spoke again, her voice was hard. “He does not love me,” she said.
“Why, what in the world do you mean by that?”
“I mean just what I say. He doesn’t love me—not as Frank loves me. He isn’t capable of it.”
“But then—why—for what other reason should he be marrying you?”
“I’m beautiful, and he wants me. But it’s mainly because I offended his vanity—yes, just that! I turned him down, I ridiculed him and insulted him. I was something he couldn’t get; and the more he couldn’t get me, the more the thought of me rankled in his mind.”
“I’m not cynical at all. I just won’t gild things over, as other women do. I won’t make pretences, I won’t cover myself and my whole life with a cloak of shams. I know right now that I’m being sold, just as much as if I were led out to an auction-block with chains about my ankles! I’m being sold to a man—and I was meant to be sold to a man from the very beginning of my life!”
There was a silence; for Aunt Varina was paralyzed by these amazing words. She had never heard such an utterance in her life before. “Sylvia!” she cried. “What do you mean? _Who_ is driving you?”
“How can you say it? Can you imagine that your good, kind parents—”
“Oh, no!” interrupted Sylvia, passionately. “At least—they don’t know it!”
Mrs. Tuis sat dumfounded. “Sylvia,” she quavered, at last, “let me implore you to get yourself together before your father arrives in New York. If he should hear what you have said to me to-night, he would never get over it—truly, it would kill him!”
An event to which Sylvia looked forward with considerable interest was a meeting with Mrs. Beauregard Dabney, who was coming to New York for a visit. Harriet, as her letters showed, was not unappreciative of the glory which had descended upon her friend, and would enjoy having some of it reflected upon herself. Thus Sylvia might be shown what emotions she ought to be feeling; possibly she might even be made to feel some of them. At any rate, she knew that Harriet would help to keep her courage screwed up.