Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/186

176 "Gaston will never look at me again."

"Well, then, he'll have to look at me," said Mr. Dosson.

"Do you mean that he'll give you up—that he'll be so abject?" Delia went on.

"They say he's just the one who will feel it most. But I'm the one who does that," said Francie, with a strange smile.

"They're stuffing you with lies—because they don't like it. He'll be tender and true," answered Delia.

"When they hate me?—Never!" And Francie shook her head slowly, still with her touching smile. "That's what he cared for most—to make them like me."

"And isn't he a gentleman, I should like to know?" asked Delia.

"Yes, and that's why I won't marry him—if I've injured him."

"Pshaw! he has seen the papers over there. You wait till he comes," Mr. Dosson enjoined, passing out of the room.

The girls remained there together and after a moment Delia exclaimed: "Well, he has got to fix it—that's one thing I can tell you."

"Who has got to fix it?"

"Why, that villainous man. He has got to publish another piece saying it's all false or all a mistake."

"Yes, you had better make him," said Francie,