Weaker than a Woman — page 215: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

206 igi WEAKER THAN A WOMAN. Sir Owen. Some one gave him an explanation of it, and hé came back to ask Lady Maude if it were correct. “T wish you would not ask me,” she said, “for it isa story I do not like to hear or to speak of.” “Your wishes are my law on every subject,” replied the major. “If you tell me that I must not ask you I will not, but I am deeply interested, and I do not often interest myself in other persons’ affairs.” ‘I can only tell you what happened,” she replied, for to no creature living had Lady Maude ever betrayed one word of the confidence Felix had reposed in her. “The occurrence,” she continued, “is unfortunately very common. Lady Chevenix, then Miss Violet Haye—‘ beautiful Violet Haye,’ she was called—was engaged to marry Felix Lonsdale. I believe that if Sir Owen had delayed his coming for three months longer they would have been married. He came, and with his vast wealth and title soon became the lion of this part of the county. How she broke her troth-plight, and why she broke it, what excuses she made to herself or others made for her, I cannot tell you; but it 1s quite cer- tain that she went to London, and that Sir Owen followed and married her there.” “'There can be but one explanation—she must have given up her lover for the baronet,” said the major, “but I cannot imagine any woman preferring Sir Owen Chevenix to Felix Lonsdale.” “You forget that Sir Owen had, as the old song says, houses and lands, while Mr. Felix Lonsdale had nothing but his brains.” The major was, silent for some minutes, and then he asked : ‘Is the world very hard on these sins, Lady Maude ?” “IT do not know. I know that society receives Lady Chevenix with open arms.” “And what do women call such sins?” he asked again. ‘What is the name they go by in this curious world called society ?” ‘People give them different names—some call them pru- dence, some faithlessness.” * What do you call such behavior?” he asked. ‘Mine is a plain, unfashionable term,” said Lady Maude. “TI call the woman who breaks her word to her lover a jilt, and I call the wrong she does by its right name of perfidy.” Major Rawson admired the speaker all the more for her frankness. , And so Sir Owen’s garden-party passed off well, every comicboo