"She came in here at eleven this morning. You know who--Jessica. I thought she came to talk over last night's concert. It was a failure. The room was as empty as the church has been of late. Those--women (my cloth prohibits me from supplying the adjective, Charles. I leave it with satisfaction in your hands) with their gabble have robbed me of my last shred of character. I assure you I am regarded as a libertine in the place--a professional breaker of hearts, a Don Juan bragging of my conquests! Each of those Fifteen has her own tale to tell of her own wrongs and of my deceit. They hold indignation meetings in Mrs Carter's house. I shouldn't care the value of one of their hairpins, but one does not like to see the church empty; and it is not agreeable, having gone to the bother of getting up a concert, to sing to empty benches. It was not, however, to talk over the concert she had come.
"She had come to tell me she thought it would be better for us thoroughly to understand each other. I said I thought we had done so from the first. She told me she hoped so, but that we were going to speak out plainly now. She despised the underhand methods of other women, she said, and when she wanted to know a thing she went to the person capable of giving an answer and asked a direct question.
"Then she asked me, 'Did I mean to make her an offer of marriage?'
"In so many words she asked me, and never flinched.
"And I didn't flinch. I was so indignant, so outraged!
"I hope I did not shout the word, but the room seemed to echo with it, somehow.
"'You mean that?' she asked; and I said that I meant it fervently.
"She got up and went to the door. There she waited, her hands in her coat-pockets, staring at the door. 'Of course you know that you have behaved disgracefully?' she said. 'I should never have trusted myself so much in your society but that I believed you to be an honourable man. I find you are not. If my father were younger he would punish you as you deserve. As it is--.'
"As it is, thank goodness, she went. Where's the good of bothering you with more of her invective?
"And I am going; to make room for another curate--another confirmed bachelor.
"She did not spare me of course. Among other agreeable things she said that I was a heartless Brute, and she hoped I should get what I deserved.