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 "And it seems to me," said Pembroke, calmly, "on looking back, that I was a little too aggressive—that I put rather a forced construction on what you said—and that I was very angry."

"I was angry, too—and it has angered me every time I have thought of it in these six years, that I was made to appear mercenary, when I am far from it—that a mere want of tact and judgment should have marked me in your esteem—or anybody else's, for that matter—as a perfectly cold and calculating woman."

She was certainly very angry now.

"But if I was wrong," said Pembroke, in a low, clear voice—for he used the resources of his delightful voice on poor Olivia as he had done on many men and some women before—"I have paid the price. The humiliation and the pangs of six years ago were much—and then, the feeling that, after all, there was but one woman in the world for me—ah, Olivia, sometimes I think you do not know how deep is the hold you took upon me. You would have seen in all these years, that however I might try, I could not forget you."

Olivia was not implacable.

When they came in the house, the Colonel was come, and in a gale of good humor. He had, however, great fault to find with Pembroke's course. He was too conciliatory—too willing to forget the blood shed upon the battlefields of Virginia—and then and there they entered upon a political discus