And
he--coward that he was--had shirked it--had denied her last
mute petition.
Well!--after all--might it not simply have made matters worse?--for her
no less than for him? The whole thing was his mother's responsibility.
He might, no doubt, have pushed it all through, regardless of
consequences; he might have accepted the Juliet Sparling heritage,
thrown over his career, braved his mother, and carried off Diana by
storm--if, that is, she would ever have allowed him to make the
sacrifice as soon as she fully understood it. But it would have been one
of the most quixotic things ever done. He had made his effort to do it;
and--frankly--he had not been capable of it. He wondered how many men of
his acquaintance would have been capable of it.
Nevertheless, he had fallen seriously in his own estimation. Nor was he
unaware that he had lost a certain amount of consideration with the
world at large. His courtship of Diana had been watched by a great many
people: and at the same moment that it came to an end and she left
England, the story of her parentage had become known in Brookshire.
There had been a remarkable outburst of public sympathy and pity,
testifying, no doubt, in a striking way, to the effect produced by the
girl's personality, even in those few months of residence.
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