'You sought me out--'

'Tut! Let us have done with that. WE know very well how it was. Why
should you and I talk about it, when you and I can't disguise it? To
proceed. I am disappointed and cut a poor figure.'

'Am I no one?'

'Some one--and I was coming to you, if you had waited a moment. You,
too, are disappointed and cut a poor figure.'

'An injured figure!'

'You are now cool enough, Sophronia, to see that you can't be injured
without my being equally injured; and that therefore the mere word is
not to the purpose. When I look back, I wonder how I can have been such
a fool as to take you to so great an extent upon trust.'

'And when I look back--' the bride cries, interrupting.

'And when you look back, you wonder how you can have been--you'll excuse
the word?'

'Most certainly, with so much reason.

'--Such a fool as to take ME to so great an extent upon trust. But the
folly is committed on both sides. I cannot get rid of you; you cannot
get rid of me. What follows?'

'Shame and misery,' the bride bitterly replies.