"This will not make any coldness between us, I hope?" he said, at last. "We will be friends still, dear Juanita?"
"Yes," I replied, "we will be friends, dear William. We are a great deal more in our true relations thus than as lovers."
"And your uncle's family," he inquired,--"shall we explain all to them?"
"There is no need of that," I answered, carelessly. "Let things pass. After a time they will perhaps notice that there is a change, and I can tell them that we are both tired of the engagement. They will ask no further questions."
"Thank you," he said. "It will save me some embarrassment."
"Yes," I replied, looking at him steadily, "I think it would have been a rather awkward topic for you to broach."
His eye fell before mine; through all the sophistry he had used, I think some slight sense of the baseness of his conduct forced itself upon his mind.
"Now I must return to the house," I said, rising; "will you not come with me? My uncle and aunt will expect to see you, and Anna Gray is here. You can make your first essay toward the rich match this evening."
"Nonsense!" he said, impatiently, yet he accompanied me. I knew he did not like to lose sight of me.
Never had I exerted myself so much to please any one, as I did that night to charm and attract him;--not, indeed, by any marked attention; that would have failed of its object. But I talked and danced; I displayed for his benefit all that I had acquired of ease and manner since he left. I saw his astonishment, that the pale, quiet girl who was wont to sit in some corner, almost unnoticed, should now be the life of that gay circle. I made him admire me most at the very moment he had lost me forever,--and so far, all was well.
I went to my room that night a different creature. That place had been a kind of sanctuary to me. By its vine-draped window I had loved to sit and think of him, to read the books he liked, and fashion my mind to what he could approve. But the spot which I had left, a hopeful and loving girl, I returned to, a forsaken and revengeful woman. My whole nature was wrought up to one purpose,--to repay him, to the last iota, all he had made me suffer, all the humiliation, the despair. It was strange how this purpose upbore and consoled me; for I needed consolation. I hated him, yet I loved him fiercely, too; I despised him, yet I knew no other man would ever touch my heart. He had been, he always must be, everything to me,--the one object to which all my thoughts tended, to which my every action was referred.