And the little house--that was worse than anything. Her tears flowed faster as
she thought of Stephen's joy in it, of his faithful labor, of the savings he
had invested in it. She hated and despised herself when she thought of the
house, and for the first time in her life she realized the limitations of her
nature, the poverty of her ideals.
What should she do? She had lost Stephen and ruined his life. Now, in order
that she need not blight a second career, must she contrive to return Claude's
love? To be sure, she thought, it seemed indecent to marry any other man than
Stephen, when they had built a house together, and chosen wallpapers, and a
kitchen stove, and dining-room chairs; but was it not the only way to evade
the difficulties?
Suppose that Stephen, in a fit of pique, should ask somebody else to share the
new cottage?
As this dreadful possibility came into view, Rose's sobs actually frightened
the birds and the squirrels. She paced back and forth under the trees,
wondering how she could have been engaged to a man for eight months and know
so little about him as she seemed to know about Stephen Waterman today. Who
would have believed he could be so autocratic, so severe, SS so
unapproachable? Who could have foreseen that she, Rose Wiley, would ever be
given up to another man,--handed over as coolly as if she had been a bale of
cotton? She wanted to return Claude Merrill's love because it was the only way
out of the tangle; but at the moment she almost hated him for making so much
trouble, for hurting Stephen, for abasing her in her own eyes, and, above all,
for giving her rustic lover the chance of impersonating an injured emperor.
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