"Oh, Julian, Julian, I was cruel to you--I was cruel to you!" she cried
out impulsively in a poignant voice.
He started violently at the sound, coming back indeed through the years.
He looked up at her, seeing as in a dream her slim figure clad in a gray
cloth gown, on the landing of the stair. Her face was soft and young and
wistful; her aspect had conquered the years; she was again the girl he
knew of old, whom he had fancied he had loved, crying out in the
constraining impetus of a genuine emotion, "I was cruel to you! I was
cruel to you!"
The next moment he was all himself of to-day--cool, confident, serene,
with that suggestion of dash and vigor that characterized his movements.
"Why, don't mention it, I beg," he said with a quiet laugh and his
smooth, incidental society manner, as if it were indeed a matter of
trifling consequence. Then, "I am sure neither of us has anything to
regret." The last sentence he thought a bit enigmatical, and he said to
Briscoe afterward that, although strictly applicable, he did not quite
know what he had meant by it.
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