And the worst of it was that she had no actual
justification for considering herself jilted. She had talked, and other
people had talked, and among them they had settled the business. But
Smithson had said hardly anything. He had only flirted to his heart's
content, and had spent a few hundreds upon flowers, gloves, fans, and
opera tickets, which perhaps would not have been accepted by a girl with
a strong sense of her own dignity.'
'I should think not, indeed,' interjected Lesbia.
'But which poor Belle was only too delighted to get.'
'Miss Trinder must be very bad style,' said Lesbia, with languid scorn,
'and Mr. Smithson is an execrable person. Did she die?'
'No, my dear, she is alive poor soul!'
'You said she broke her heart.'
'"The heart may break, yet brokenly live on,"' quoted Lady Kirkbank.
'The disappointed young women don't all die. They take to district
visiting, or rational dressing, or china painting, or an ambulance
brigade. The lucky ones marry well-to-do widowers with large families,
and so slip into a comfortable groove by the time they are
five-and-thirty.
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