Beatrice blushed again, with anger this time.
"Yes," she said, after a short pause, "it is quite true that I said I
loved him, and for one moment I meant it. But I made a mistake. I am
sorry, and I will tell him so. But I will tell him other things, too. I
will tell him that I saw through his acting before we left Tragara last
night, and that I will never forgive him for the part he played. You
know as well as I that it was all a play, from beginning to end. I liked
him better than the others because I thought him more manly, more
honest, more dignified. But I have changed my mind. I see the whole
truth now, every detail of it. He planned it all, and he did it very
well--probably he planned it the night before last, out here with you,
while I was playing waltzes. You could not make me marry him, and he got
leave of you to speak to me. Do you think I do not understand it all?
Would you have let me go away last night and sit with him on the rocks,
out of your hearing, without so much as a remark, unless you had
arranged the matter between you? It is not like you, and I know you
meant it. It was all a plot.
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