And it had turned against her.
For now, when he had got over it, had forgotten that he had ever had
that feeling, when all he wanted was to go his own way and let her go
hers, she had tried to force herself upon him (Lucia was unaware of
her violent distortion of the facts). He had come with his simple
honourable desire for reparation; and she had committed _the_
unpardonable blunder--she had mistaken his intentions. And for the
monument and crown of her dishonour, she, Lucia Harden, had proposed
to him and been rejected.
Her misery endured (with some merciful intermissions) for three weeks.
Then Horace Jewdwine wrote and invited himself down for the first
week-end in May.
"_Can_ he come, Kitty?" she asked wearily.
"Of course he can, dear, if you want him,"
"I don't want him; but I don't mind his coming."
Kitty said to herself, "He has an inkling; Edith has been saying
things; and it has brought him to the point." Otherwise she could not
account for such an abrupt adventure on the part of the deliberate
Horace. It was a Wednesday; and he proposed to come on Friday. He
came on Friday. Kitty's observation was on the alert; but it could
detect nothing that first evening beyond a marked improvement in
Horace Jewdwine. With Lucia he was sympathetic, deferential, charming.
He also laid himself out, a little elaborately, to be agreeable to
Kitty.
In the morning he approached Lucia with a gift, brought for her
birthday ("I thought," said Lucia, "he had forgotten that I ever had a
birthday").
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