"Beulah, if he loves you still, you will not reject him?" cried
Cornelia eagerly.
"He does not love me."
"Why will you evade me? Suppose that he does?"
"Then I tell you solemnly, not all Christendom could induce me to
marry him!"
"But to save him, Beulah! to save him!" replied Cornelia, clasping
her hands entreatingly.
"If a man's innate self-respect will not save him from habitual,
disgusting intoxication, all the female influence in the universe
would not avail. Man's will, like woman's, is stronger than his
affection, and, once subjugated by vice, all external influences
will be futile. If Eugene once sinks so low, neither you, nor I, nor
his wife--had he one--could reclaim him."
"He has deceived me! Fool that I was not to probe the mask!"
Cornelia started up and paced the floor with uncontrollable
agitation.
"Take care how you accuse him rashly! I am not prepared to believe
that he could act dishonorably toward anyone. I will not believe
it." "Oh, you, too, will get your eyes open in due time! Ha! it is
all as clear as daylight! And I, with my boasted penetration!--it
maddens me!" Her eyes glittered like polished steel.
"Explain yourself; Eugene is above suspicion!" cried Beulah, with
pale, fluttering lips.
"Explain myself! Then understand that my honorable brother professed
to love you, and pretended that he expected to marry you, simply and
solely to blind me, in order to conceal the truth. I taxed him with
a preference for Antoinette Dupres, which I fancied his manner
evinced. He denied it most earnestly, protesting that he felt bound
to you. Now do you understand?" Her lips were white, and writhed
with scorn.
"Still you may misjudge him," returned Beulah haughtily.
"No, no! My mother has seen it all along. But, fool that I was, I
believed his words! Now, Beulah, if he marries Antoinette, you will
be amply revenged, or my name is not Cornelia Graham!" She laughed
bitterly, and, dropping some medicine from a vial, swallowed the
potion and resumed her walk up and down the floor.
"Revenged! What is it to me, that he should marry your cousin? If he
loves her, it is no business of mine, and certainly you have no
right to object. You are miserably deceived if you imagine that his
marriage would cause me an instant's regret. Think you I could love
a man whom I knew to be my inferior? Indeed, you know little of my
nature." She spoke with curling lips and a proud smile.