"Despise you? Why, I didn't know anything about you." The young man's lethargic conscience gives him a severe prick. He should not have made light of it to Laura and madame, but he _did_ bind them to inviolate secrecy. "If I had seen you I should not have despised you, I should have married you," he says, triumphantly. "If you were free to-day, I should ask you to marry me. I think you the sweetest and most rarely honest girl I have ever met, and you _are_ beautiful, though I wouldn't own that at first. Despise you? Why, I would fight the whole world for you, and I will, if----" "No," she interrupts. Even his spirited defence cannot restore what has been so rudely wrenched away. She feels so old, so weary, so desolate, that nothing matters. "It is not so bad----" and she looks up with piteous eyes. "Why, there is nothing bad about it at all," he declares, impatiently. "Don't the English and the French plan marriages, and there are people here whose parents join fortunes, lots of them! Marcia was angry and wanted to mortify you. The idea of marrying Jasper Wilmarth and then lording it over everybody, is too good! And as for flirting--well, I wouldn't dare flirt with you," he says, laughingly. "Floyd would soon settle me. I like you too well, I honor you too much," he continues. "There, will you not be comforted with something? Oh, I have a letter from Floyd, and he will be home to-morrow night! I came to bring it to you." He takes it from his pocket and hands it to her, but her fingers tremble, and no joy lights up her pale face. Eugene is so sincerely sorry that he holds himself in thorough contempt for his part in the early history of the affair, and he is very angry as well. "Now," he says, "I am going away, and I shall not be home to luncheon, but I will meet you at the Latimers'. If Marcia dares to make another comment, it will be the worse for her, that's all. My poor child, are you going to keep that dreary face and those despairing eyes for Floyd to see?" He has a very strong inclination to take her in his arms and shower tenderness upon her; but if he has been drifting that way for the past week, he is rudely awakened now. He looks at her helplessly. If she would only cry; the girls he has seen have been ready enough with their tears. "Yes, you must go," she says, wearily. "Thank you for the letter, for _all_." Then she walks slowly out of the room. CHAPTER XXIV. What act of Legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy?--CARLYLE. While Eugene Grandon's anger is at white heat he goes to Madame Lepelletier and taxes her with betrayed trust. He knows very well that Marcia could not long keep such a tidbit to herself. Laura is away, and his mother never has repeated the tale, though to him she has bemoaned his short-sightedness, the more since the fortune has been certain.