He was
poor. To her, that made no difference. She would have gone with him to the
ends of the earth. The flame had touched her heart; she was a victim, like
many another; and when her lover, too proud to ask her to share his poverty
with her, stayed behind when she went back to New York, and failed to write
to her, she almost died of grief. But life had to be faced. One word from
her--she, too, was proud,--and there might have been a different story to
tell. But with the foolish self-consciousness of lovers, each failed the
other in the great moment that would have sealed their destinies.
Lucia determined that this broken affair should not wreck her existence.
But she brooded long, in secret, and would go nowhere. Her aunt, with whom
she lived, could not rouse her for many months to a sense of the vivid
world around her. She would see no one.
Two years later Morgan Pell came into her life, at almost the first dinner
she had attended during a long period of time. His impulsiveness, his
assurance, his faith in himself and his power to win her, swept her
temporarily off her feet. At their second meeting he asked her to become
his wife. Why not? She would never love anyone; but she could not go to the
altar with him unless she told him the truth.
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