As he entered, she saw that he was about to perform the one heroic act of his life, but she was cruel enough to prevent even that one, and so reduced his whole career to one consistently elegant and polished surface.
He had taken her hand, and was about to address her in the most appropriate language, and with all the dignity of self-sacrifice, when she interrupted him by saying briefly: "Mr. Beaumont, please listen to me first. Before the most unexpected event occurred which has made so great a change in my fortunes, and I may add, in so many of my friends, I had decided to say to you in all sincerity and, kindness that I could not marry you. I could not give you that love which a wife ought to give to a husband. I now repeat my decision still more emphatically."
Mr. Beaumont was again stunned and bewildered. A woman declining to marry him!
"Can nothing change your decision?" he faltered, fearing that something might.
"Nothing," she coldly replied, and with an involuntary expression of contempt hovering around her flexible mouth.
"But what will you do?" he asked, prompted by not a little curiosity.
"Support myself by honest work," was her quiet but very decisive answer.
Mr. Beaumont now felt that there was nothing more to be done but to make a little elegant farewell address, and depart, and he would make it in spite of all that she could do.
The next thing she heard of him was that he had started on a tour of Europe, and, no doubt, in his old character of a connoisseur, whose judgment few dared to dispute.