"For how long has your engagement with Mr. Ridgway been broken, may I ask?"
"Between fifteen and twenty minutes."
"A lovers' quarrel, perhaps!" he hazarded gently.
"On the contrary, quite final and irrevocable Mr. Ridgway and I have never
been lovers. She was not sure whether this last was mean as a confession
or a justification.
"Not lovers?" He waited for her to explain Her proud eyes faced him. "We
became engaged for other reasons. I thought that did not matter. But I find
my other reasons were not sufficient. To-day I terminated the engagement.
But it is only fair to say that Mr. Ridgway had come here for that purpose.
I merely anticipated him." Her self-contempt would not let her abate one
jot of the humiliating truth. She flayed herself with a whip of scorn quite
lost on Hobart.
A wave of surging hope was flushing his heart, but he held himself well in
hand.
"I must be presumptuous still," he said. "I must find out if you broke the
engagement because you care for another man?"
She tried to meet his shining eyes and could not. "You have no right to ask
that.
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