" "To see how far I would go?" he had repeated. "You led me on,
meaning all the while to do _this_!" "I led you on, if you will. I
received your visits, in season and out! Sometimes they were very
entertaining; sometimes they bored me fearfully. But you were such a
very curious case of--what shall I call it?--of sincerity, that I
determined to take good and bad together. I wanted to make you commit
yourself unmistakably. I should have preferred not to bring you to this
place; but that too was necessary. Of course I can't marry you; I can do
better. So can you, for that matter; thank your fate for it. You have
thought wonders of me for a month, but your good-humour wouldn't last. I
am too old and too wise; you are too young and too foolish. It seems to
me that I have been very good to you; I have entertained you to the top
of your bent, and, except perhaps that I am a little brusque just now,
you have nothing to complain of. I would have let you down more gently
if I could have taken another month to it; but circumstances have forced
my hand. Abuse me, curse me, if you like. I will make every allowance!"
Pickering listened to all this intently enough to perceive that, as if by
some sudden natural cataclysm, the ground had broken away at his feet,
and that he must recoil.
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