“Was she—­very good-looking?” Cynthia asked, listlessly.

“No!” shouted Jeff.  “She wasn’t good-looking at all.  She was dark and thin, and she had little slanting eyes; but she was graceful, and she knew how to make herself go further than any girl I ever saw.  If she came into a room, she made you look at her, or you had to somehow.  She was bright, too; and she had more sense than all the other girls there put together.  But she was a fool, all the same.”  Jeff paused.  “Is that enough?”

“It isn’t all.”

“No, it isn’t all.  We didn’t meet much at first, but I got to walking home with her from some teas; and then we met at a big ball.  I danced with her the whole while nearly, and—­and I took her brother home—­Pshaw!  He was drunk; and I—­well, he had got drunk drinking with me at the ball.  The wine didn’t touch me, but it turned his head; and I took him home; he’s a drunkard, anyway.  She let us in when we got to their house, and that kind of made a tie between us.  She pretended to think she was under obligations to me, and so I got to going to her house.”

“Did she know how her brother got drunk?”

“She does now.  I told her last night.”  How came you to tell her?”

“I wanted to break with her.  I wanted to stop it, once for all, and I thought that would do it, if anything would.”

“Did that make her willing to give you up?”

Jeff checked himself in a sort of retrospective laugh.  “I’m not so sure.  I guess she liked the excitement of that, too.  You couldn’t understand the kind of girl she—­She wanted to flirt with me that night I brought him home tipsy.”

“I don’t care to hear any more about her.  Why did you give her up?”

“Because I didn’t care for her, and I did care for you, Cynthy.”

“I don’t believe it.”  Cynthia rose from the step, where she had been sitting, as if with renewed strength.  “Go up and tell father to come down here.  I want to see him.”  She turned and put her hand on the latch of the door.

“You’re not going in there, Cynthia,” said Jeff.  “It must be like death in there.”

“It’s more like death out here.  But if it’s the cold you mean, you needn’t be troubled.  We’ve had a fire to-day, airing out the house.  Will you go?”

“But what do you—­what are you going to say to me?”

“I don’t know, yet.  If I said anything now, I should tell you what Mr. Westover did:  go back to that girl, if she’ll let you.  You’re fit for each other, as he said.  Did you tell her that you were engaged to some one else?”

“I did, last night.”

“But before that she didn’t know how false you were.  Well, you’re not fit for her, then; you’re not good enough.”

She opened the door and went in, closing it after her.  Jeff turned and walked slowly away; then he came quickly back, as if he were going to follow her within.  But through the window he saw her as she stood by the table with a lamp in her hand.  She had turned up the light, which shone full in her face and revealed its severe beauty broken and writhen with the effort to repress her weeping.  He might not have minded the severity or the beauty, but the pathos was more than he could stand.  “Oh, Lord!” he said, with a shrug, and he turned again and walked slowly up the hill.