I pretended not to care whether he stayed or went, and talked to Lord
Robert West as if I'd forgotten that there was such a person as Ivor
Dundas. I even turned my back on him before he was gone. Still I seemed
to see the tragic look in his eyes, and the dogged set of his jaw. It
was just as if he were going away from me to his death; and his face was
like that of the man in Millais' picture of the Huguenot Lovers. I
wondered if that girl had been broken-hearted because he wouldn't let
her tie round his arm the white scarf that might have saved him.
It is strange how one's mood can change in a moment--but perhaps it is
like that only with women. A minute before I'd been trying to despise
Ivor, and to argue, just as if I'd been a match-making mamma, to myself
that it would be a very good thing if I could make up my mind to marry
Lord Bob; that it would be rather nice being a Duchess some day; and
that besides, perhaps Ivor would be sorry when he heard that I was
engaged to somebody else.
But then, as I said, quite suddenly it was as if a sharp knife had been
stuck into my heart and turned round and round. I would have given
anything to run after Ivor to tell him that I loved him dreadfully and
would trust him in spite of all.
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