Rosa "had out" her fit of crying when he went away, betaking herself
to her chamber and locking the door that her aunt might not surprise
her while the traces of tears disfigured her cheeks. But she was
anything but broken-hearted, and only slightly sore in spirit in the
retrospect of what had ensued upon her communication to the
discarded lover. He had, indeed, given more evidence of his
unconquered passion for Mabel than she had expected. His undisguised
pleasure in renewed companionship with herself; his excellent
spirits during the greater part of the evening; his unembarrassed
reply to her aunt's malapropos observation, and fluent chat upon
other themes, had misled her into the hope that the ungenerous and
uncivil conduct of the Ayletts had disgusted and alienated him from
sister, no less than from brother. It was a disappointment to
discover that it cost him a terrible effort to pronounce Mabel's
name, while the abrupt intelligence of her marriage had distracted
him to incoherent ravings, which had nearly amounted to curses upon
the authors of his pain.
"And all for a woman who could bring herself, after being engaged to
Frederic Chilton, to marry that dolt of a Dorrance!" she said,
indignantly. "I wonder if he would have been consoled or chagrined
had I painted the portrait of the man who had superseded him. It is
as well that I did not make the experiment. He would be magnanimous
enough when he cooled down--which he will do by to-morrow
morning--to pity her, and that is next to the last thing I want him
to do. Thank goodness! the denouement is over, and the topic an
interdicted one from this time forth. Now for the verification or
refutation of the saying that a heart is most easily caught in the
rebound. There was some jargon we learned at school about the angle
of incidence being equal to that of reflection. You see, my dearly
beloved self," nodding with returning sauciness at her image in the
mirror before which she was combing her hair, "I undertake this
business in the spirit of philosophical investigation."
She needed to keep her courage up by these and the like whimsical
conceits, when the forenoon of the next day passed away without a
glimpse of Mr. Chilton. He had not yet left his card for the Masons,
nor called to inquire after her health, when the summons sounded to
the five o'clock dinner. A horrible apprehension seized and devoured
her heart by the time the dessert was brought on, and there were no
signs of his appearance. He had, ashamed to meet her after last
night's exposure of his weakness, or dreading the power of the
reminiscences the sight of her would awaken, left the city without
coming to say "Farewell." That is, she had driven him from her
forever!