The Charm School
thing as near emotion as she had ever displayed, "how can you say that, when it has been you that separated us? And now he doesn't care a sixpence about me."
There was a brief silence. Mrs. Rolles could take defeat like a lady.
"It's strange," she said, calmly, "how many intelligent women there are—and I think you intelligent, my dear—who suppose that in a love-affair indifference is a power. It is, on the contrary, the greatest weakness. Every woman who really loves a man can take him away from any woman who doesn't, no matter what their relative charms are. If you had cared for Austin Bevans—"
"But I did," cried the exasperated Susie; "at least I would have, if you had let me."
"You would have, but you didn't," replied her mother. "Whereas that little Benedotti girl—one of the most determined people I ever saw—"
"Mamma, that little mouse determined?"
Mrs. Rolles nodded. "Yes, you should have seen her expression of fanatical resolution when I told her about your engagement to Austin Bevans."
"You told her we were engaged?"
Mrs. Rolles drew her wraps about her. "Not in set terms, of course, for that would
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