But she
respected his wishes too much to ask, after what he had said, and she
tried to make herself glad that he had been so frank with her, and not
left his other love affair to the chance of her discovering it
afterwards at a time when it might be painful to her.
"I wish I had something to confess," she thought, but from the scores
of her flirtations, and even offers, for she had not lacked for them,
she could not find one where her own feelings had been enlisted in
ever so slight a degree, until she remembered Thornton Hastings, who
for one whole week had paid her much attentions as made her drive
round on purpose to look at the house on Madison Square where the
future Mrs. Hastings was to live. But his coolness afterwards, and his
comments on her frivolity had terribly angered her, making her think
she hated him, as she had said to Anna. Now, however, as she
remembered the drive and the house, she nestled closer to Arthur, and
told him all about it, fingering the buttons on his dressing-gown as
she told it, and never dreaming of the pang she was inflicting as
Arthur thought how mysterious were God's ways, and wondered that he
had not reversed the matter, and given Lucy to Thornton Hastings
rather than to him, who did not half deserve her.
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