"I am very morbid and fanciful, certainly," I said to myself, "even to
think such a thing possible. At his age, and knowing full well my
opinion of him, my sentiments toward him--he surely would not dare--!" I
could not even in my own heart finish out a conjecture that dyed my face
and throat crimson, or mahogany-color, as Evelyn would have averred
contemptuously could she have witnessed my solitary confusion.
"I have clung to him too much," I thought; "it is my own fault if he
throws too much of the tone of tenderness in his manner, when,
distasteful as he is to me, his arm, his protection, have seemed to me
preferable to those of a stranger, and I have accepted them merely to
avoid the advances of others.
"I am not in the mood to be sentimental, or susceptible either, after my
bitter experience, and the idea he so carefully instills is ever present
to me--strive as I will to repel it--the thought that I am sought
alone for my fortune!
"Yet I am not wholly unattractive, probably, though less beautiful than
Evelyn. But what, after all, is beauty? Plainer women than I are loved
and sought in marriage, who possess no gift of fortune or
accomplishment.
"Why should I suffer him to fill my mind with suspicions that embitter
it against all approaches? Why should I seal my soul away in endless
gloom, because one man, out of all Adam's race, was faithless and
falsehearted?"
Thus reasoning, I gained strength and self-reliance to receive other
attentions and mingle with the multitude.
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