“That is not enough. Do you think it is a pleasant thing for me to have to confess that my sister has made a promise she cannot keep, and that I must throw myself on his mercy to set her free? And poor George himself! You may tell me I know nothing about this sort of thing, but it will be a terrible blow to him. No, it is not your fault, Pen--altogether. You should have spoken before, but I am to blame too. I will undertake to settle the matter with George, and I only trust that I may be mistaken in thinking how much he will feel it.” “He won’t release me,” she said hopelessly. “I asked him myself.” “Without giving any reason? Of course he thought it was merely girlish fickleness or a love of teasing.” Penelope moved her head unrepentantly. “Pen, you talk of my being unjust to you, but you are frightfully unjust to George. As if any gentleman would keep a girl bound when he knew she cared for some one else! You try to excuse yourself by making him out a blackguard.” “I can only judge him as I have found him,” she said, wondering whether Colin’s firm faith in his friend had really a power to bring out the best side of Ferrers’ character. Colin looked for good in him, and found it; she expected nothing better than lack of sympathy and consideration, and duly met with it. Was she herself in part to blame for the unsatisfactory features of his conduct? If she had been able to love him and believe in him with the whole-hearted confidence he had inspired in her as a child, if she could have continued to regard him as an ideal hero, accepting his careless favours with rapture, and never dreaming of demanding more affection than he chose to give, he might possibly have developed into the being she believed him. Possibly, but not probably. An unreasoning devotion would in all likelihood have wearied him, even if her sharp eyes had not beheld the flaws in his armour; but it was not possible to Penelope to go about with her eyes shut. Perfection she did not expect, but Ferrers could never have satisfied her now that she was no longer a child, even had his deficiencies, not been accentuated by the contrast with that other lover of whom she strove conscientiously not to think, but whose very faults she owned to herself that she loved.