"No, sir. Take that back. I never stoop to trifling; and the curse of my life has been my almost fatal earnestness of purpose. If I ever deliberated one moment concerning the expediency of clothing myself first with your aristocratic name, afterwards with satin, velvet, and diamonds,--if I ever silenced the outcry of my heart long enough to ask myself whether _gilded misery_ was not the least torturing type of the epidemic wretchedness,--at least I kept my parley with Mammon to myself; and if you obstinately cherished hopes of final success, they sprang from your vanity, not my dissimulation. Mark you, I here set up no claim to sanctity,--for indeed my sins are 'thick as leaves in Vallombrosa'; but my pedigree does not happen to link me with Sapphira, and deceit is not charged to me in the real Doomsday Book. Theft would be more possible for me than falsehood, for while both are labelled 'wicked,' I could never dwarf and shrivel my soul by the cowardly process of mendacity. Mr. Minge, had I been a trifle less honest and true than I find myself, I might have impaired my self-respect by trifling." "Forgive me, Salome, if the pain I endure rendered me harsh or unjust. My dearest, I did not intend to wound you, but indeed you are cruel sometimes." "Yes; truth is the most savagely cruel of all rude, jagged weapons, and leaves ugly gashes and quivering nerves exposed, and these are the hurts that never cicatrize--that gape and bleed while the heart throbs to feed them." "Tell me candidly whether the heart I covet belongs to that Mr. Granville, who paid you such devoted attention in Paris." A short, scornful, mirthless laugh rang sharply on the air, and turning quickly, Salome exclaimed contemptuously,-- "I said I loved a man,--a true, honest, brave, noble man,--not that perfumed, unprincipled, vain, foppish automaton, who adorns a corner of the diplomatic apartment where _attaches_ of the American embassy 'most do congregate'! Gerard Granville is unworthy of any woman's affection, for maugre the indisputable fact that he is betrothed to a fond, trusting girl, now in the United States, he had the effrontery to attempt to offer his addresses to me. If an honest man be the noblest work of God, then, beyond all peradventure, the disgrace of creation is centred in an unscrupulous one, such as I have the honor to pronounce Mr. Granville." Seizing her hands, Mr. Minge carried them forcibly to his lips, and said, in a voice that faltered from intensity of feeling,-- "Is it the hope that your love is reciprocated which bars your heart so sternly against my pleadings? Spare me no pangs,--tell me all." She freed her fingers from his grasp, and retreating a few steps, answered with a passionate mournfulness which he never forgot,--