Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/22

10 And it's good-bye for ever. No—it's only painful for both of us. There's no more to be said; you've betrayed me. I didn't think a decent man could do such things." She was pulling on her gloves. "Go home and gloat over it all! And that poor girl—you've broken her heart too." This really was a master stroke of nobility.

He stood up suddenly. "Do you mean it?" he said, and his tone should have warned her. "Are you really going to throw me over for a thing like this?"

The anger in his eyes frightened her, and the misery of his face wrung her heart; but how could she say—

"No, of course I'm not! I'm only talking as I know good girls ought to talk"?

So she said—

"Yes. Good-bye!"

He stood up suddenly. "Then good-bye," he said, "and may God forgive you as I do!" And he strode down between the marble tables and out by the swing-door. It was a very good exit. At the corner he remembered that he had gone away without paying for the tea, and his natural