"
"Has she been cruel to you?"
"I have nothing to complain of. But if she loved Chiltern, why did
she not tell him so at once? And why--"
"This is complaining, Mr. Finn."
"I will not complain. I would not even think of it, if I could help
it. Are they to be married soon?"
"In July;--so they now say."
"And where will they live?"
"Ah! no one can tell. I do not think that they agree as yet as to
that. But if she has a strong wish Oswald will yield to it. He was
always generous."
"I would not even have had a wish,--except to have her with me."
There was a pause for a moment, and then Lady Laura answered him with
a touch of scorn in her voice,--and with some scorn, too, in her
eye:--"That is all very well, Mr. Finn; but the season will not be
over before there is some one else."
"There you wrong me."
"They tell me that you are already at Madame Goesler's feet."
"Madame Goesler!"
"What matters who it is as long as she is young and pretty, and
has the interest attached to her of something more than ordinary
position? When men tell me of the cruelty of women, I think that no
woman can be really cruel because no man is capable of suffering. A
woman, if she is thrown aside, does suffer."
"Do you mean to tell me, then, that I am indifferent to Miss
Effingham?" When he thus spoke, I wonder whether he had forgotten
that he had ever declared to this very woman to whom he was speaking,
a passion for herself.
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