“You are deceived,” I pursued, calmly, “if you imagine from any expression of mine that one ray of love survives the ruin of other days.  I told you the truth when I said all was over between us forever.  Did you suppose me a woman to sit down in the ashes because one man—­one woman of all God’s manifold creation—­had proved false, or treacherous, or ungrateful?  I should have wronged my youth, my soul, my descent, my God, had I so yielded.  Go and fulfill your contract faithfully this time; a second rupture might not go so well with you as the first.  There are persons who are singularly tenacious of their possessions, and who number their bondsmen as a principal portion of their property.  Beware how you anger such!  Your father too.  He would be conciliated now, by what would once have incensed him.  Evelyn Erie is rich, Miriam Monfort is poor; why need I add another word?  The suggestion is perfect.”

Coldly, silently, angrily, he left the room.  I heard him stamp impatiently at the hall-door, at some delay apparently in undoing its fastenings—­his childish habit when provoked—­such was his haste to be gone.

Yet I could scarcely judge, from what had just occurred, taking this, too, in connection with what had passed long before, when I alone was the injured and forgiving one, that I had drawn down upon my head his eternal enmity.

But thus it proved.

CHAPTER IX.

Months passed away—­months of dreary, monotonous despondency, through which ran a vein of anxiety that banished peace.  During all this time matters went on pretty much as they had done before, with one exception, I held no further intercourse with Mr. Basil Bainrothe.  Claude was absent most of this time on business, for a firm with which he had lately connected himself, and on the few occasions of his presence at Monfort Hall treated me with marked formality.

Evelyn had affected to make light of Mr. Bainrothe’s outrage toward me, though far from defending him.  “Men of his years do these things sometimes,” she said, “under the mask of playfulness and fatherly feeling, and, however unpleasant it may be to bear them, one has to pass them over.  You are right, of course, to be reserved with him henceforth, Miriam.  By-the-by, dear child, your prudery is excessive, I fear, and it makes a young girl, especially if she is not beautiful, so ridiculous!  But, of course, that even is far better than the opposite extreme.  Now, I flatter myself, I know how to steer the juste milieu, always so desirable.”

“But, Evelyn,” I had rejoined, “his manner was atrocious!  I could not—­I would not if I could—­give you any idea of its animality; yes, that is the very word! it makes my blood creep to think of it, even!”

And I hid my face in my hands, crimson as it was from the retrospection.

“Then don’t think of it at all.  That will be the best way, decidedly,” she had said, tapping me playfully with her fan, then whispering:  “This lover of yours may be useful to us, you know; let us not goad him to rebellion.  You can be as cool as you please, Miriam, but be civil all the same.”