“Girls do change—­sometimes.”

“You may know them; I don’t,—­not girls that are worth anything.”

“But when all your friends are hostile?”

“What can they do?  They can’t make me marry another person.  They may hinder my happiness; but they can’t hand me over, like a parcel of goods, to any one else.  Do you mean to say that you would accept such a parcel?”

“Oh yes—­such a parcel!”

“You would accept a girl who would come to you telling you that she loved another man?  I don’t believe it of you.”

“I should know that my tenderness would beget tenderness in you.”

“It wouldn’t do anything of the kind.  It would be all horror,—­horror.  I should kill myself, or else you, or perhaps both.”

“Is your aversion so strong?”

“No, not at all;—­not at present.  I like you very much.  I do indeed.  I’d do anything for you—­in the way of friendship.  I believe you to be a real gentleman.”

“But you would kill me!”

“You make me talk of a condition of things which is quite, quite impossible.  When I say that I like you, I am talking of the present condition of things.  I have not the least desire to kill you, or myself, or anybody.  I want to be taken back to England, and there to be allowed to marry Mr. Henry Annesley.  That’s what I want.  But I intend to remain engaged to him.  That’s my purpose, and no man and no woman shall stir me from it.”  He smiled, and again shook his head, and she began to doubt whether she did like him so much.  “Now I’ve told you all about myself,” she said, rising to her feet.  “You may believe me or not, as you please; but, as I have believed you, I have told you all.”  Then she walked out of the room.

M. Grascour, as soon as he was alone, left the room and the house, and, making his way into the park, walked round it twice, turning in his mind his success and his want of success.  For, in truth, he was not at all dispirited by what had occurred.  With her other Belgian lover,—­that is, with Mr. Anderson,—­Florence had at any rate succeeded in making the truth appear to be the truth.  He did believe that she had taken such a fancy to that “fellow Harry Annesley” that there would be no overcoming it.  He had got a glimpse into the firmness of her character which was denied to M. Grascour.  M. Grascour, as he walked up and down the shady paths of the park, told himself that such events as this so-called love on the part of Florence were very common in the lives of English young ladies.  “They are the best in the world,” he said to himself, “and they make the most charming wives; but their education is such that there is no preventing these accidents.”  The passion displayed in the young lady’s words he attributed solely to her power of expression.  One girl would use language such as had been hers, and such a girl would be clever, eloquent, and brave; another girl would hum and haw, with half a “yes”