You knew her mother, or rather you
knew of her. Not the woman whom you saw in Rome, full of anxiety for her
child, but a vain, selfish, intriguing woman, whom no good man could
respect, much as he might admire her dazzling beauty. Well, she had me
on her string, when I met her daughter, but something Bessie said to me
made me strong to resist coils and arts which Satan himself would find
it hard to withstand. I used to ride with her, and flirt with her, and
bet with her, and play at her side in Monte Carlo, and let her fleece me
out of money, just as she did every one with whom she came in contact;
but after I knew Bessie, I broke with her mother entirely, and have
never played with her or any one since for money. You remember the
Christmas we spent together at Stoneleigh. You did not guess, perhaps,
how much I loved her then, or that I would have asked her to be my wife
if I had not been so poor. Then her father died, and you were there
before me, and I was horribly jealous, for I meant she should be mine.
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