She was too young
and girlish to understand that her eyes had been opened upon the
workings of the human heart. She had seen two sights which neither man
nor woman can ever forget, love and love's counterfeit presentment, and
both were stamped indelibly upon the unspotted page of her maiden
memory.
She had seen a man whom she had hitherto liked, and whom she had
unconsciously respected for a certain dignity he seemed to have, degrade
himself--and for money's sake, as she rightly judged--to the playing of
a pitiful comedy. As the whole scene came back to her in all
distinctness, she traced the deception from first to last with amazing
certainty of comprehension, and she knew that San Miniato had wilfully
and intentionally laid a plot to work upon her feelings and to produce
the result he had obtained--a poor result enough, if he had known the
whole truth, yet one of which Beatrice was sorely ashamed. She had been
deceived into the expression of something which she had never felt--and
which, this morning, seemed further from her than ever before. It was
bitter to think that any man could say she had uttered those three
words "I love you," when there was less truth in them than in the
commonest, most pardonable social lie.
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