Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over, nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the reward of her seductive attentions came.

“Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview.”

She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made herself marvelous.

“Mother,” she said, as she left her dressing-room, “you will have a headache.  I shall excuse you.  I can manage this business best alone.”

In an hour she came back triumphant.  She put her feet on the fender, and sat down before the cheerful blaze to “talk it over.”

“It is all right, mother.  Good-by to our miserable shifts and shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses.  He will settle Kurston Chace and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month.”

“Impossible, Tina!  No modiste in the world could get the things that are absolutely necessary ready in that time.”

“Everything is possible in New York—­if you have money—­and Uncle Gray will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes.  Besides, I am going to run no risks.  If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow.  There is no sentiment in the affair, and the sooner one gets to ordering dinners and running up bills, the better.”

“Poor Philip Lee!”

“Mother, why did you mention him?  Of course he will be angry, and call me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor lawyer—­especially when I had such a much better offer.  I suppose he will be here to-night.  You must see him, mother, and explain things as pleasantly as possible.  It would scarcely be proper for me, as Mr. Kurston’s affianced wife, to listen to all the ravings and protestations he is sure to indulge in.”

In this supposition Clementina was mistaken.  Philip Lee took the news of her engagement to his wealthy rival with blank calmness and a civil wish for her happiness.  He made a stay of conventional propriety, and said all the usual polite platitudes, and then went away without any evidence of the deep suffering and mortification he felt.

This was Clementina’s first drop of bitterness in her cup of success.  She questioned her mother closely as to how he looked, and what he said.  It did not please her that, instead of bemoaning his own loss, he should be feeling a contempt for her duplicity—­that he should use her to cure his passion, when she meant to wound him still deeper.  She felt at moments as if she could give up for Philip Lee the wealth and position she had so hardly won, only she knew him well enough to understand that henceforward she could not easily deceive him again.