CONFIDENCE
"I don't know what you mean by your having done me a wrong!" the girl interposed.
"If he has told you, then—I may say it! In listening to him, in believing him."
"But you didn't believe me," Bernard exclaimed, "since you immediately went and offered yourself to Miss Vivian!"
"I believed you all the same! When did I ever not believe you?"
"The last words I ever heard from Mr. Wright were words of the deepest kindness," said Angela.
She spoke with such a serious, tender grace, that Gordon seemed stirred to his depths again.
"Ah, give me another chance!" he moaned.
The poor girl could not help her tone, and it was in the same tone that she continued—
"If you think so well of me, try and be reasonable."
Gordon looked at her, slowly shaking his head.
"Reasonable—reasonable? Yes, you have a right to say that, for you are full of reason. But so am I. What I ask is within reasonable limits."
"Granting your happiness were lost," said Bernard—"I say that only for the argument—is that a ground for your wishing to deprive me of mine?"
"It is not yours—it is mine, that you have taken! You put me off my guard, and then you took it! Yours is elsewhere, and you are welcome to it!"
"Ah," murmured Bernard, giving him a long look and turning away, "it is well for you that I am willing still to regard you as my best friend!"
Gordon went on, more passionately, to Angela.
"He put me off my guard—I can't call it anything else. I know I gave him a great chance—I encouraged him, urged him, tempted him. But when once he had spoken he should have stood to it. He shouldn't have had two opinions—one for me, and one for himself! He put me off my guard. It was because I still
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