ver be able to say she refused his offer of marriage.

He had canvassed the matter very often with himself, and always arrived
at the same conclusion--that if a man were not a mere coxcomb, blinded
by vanity and self-esteem, he could always know how a woman really felt
towards him; and that where the question admitted of a doubt--where,
indeed, there was even a flaw in the absolute certainty--no man with a
due sense of what was owing to himself would risk his dignity by the
possibility of a refusal. It was a part of his peculiar ethics that a man
thus rejected was damaged, pretty much as a bill that has been denied
acceptance. It was the same wound to credit, the same outrage on character.
Considering, therefore, that nothing obliged a man to make an offer of his
hand till he had assured himself of success, it was to his thinking a mere
gratuitous pursuit of insult to be refused. That no especial delicacy
kept these things secret, that women talked of them freely--ay,
triumphantly--that they made the staple of conversation at afternoon tea
and the club, with all the flippant comments that dear friends know how to
contribute as to your vanity and presumption, he was well aware. Indeed,
he had been long an eloquent contributor to that scandal literature which
amuses the leisure of fashion and helps on the tedium of an ordinary
dinner. How Lady Maude would report the late scene in the garden to
the Countess of Mecherscroft, who would tell it to her company at her
country-house!--How the Lady Georginas would discuss it over luncheon, and
the Lord Georges talk of it out shooting! What a host of pleasant anecdotes
would be told of his inordinate puppyism and self-esteem! How even the
dullest fellows would dare to throw a stone at him! What a target for a
while he would be for every marksman at any range to shoot at! All these
his quick-witted ingenuity pictured at once before him.

'I see it all,' cried he, as he paced his room in self-examination. 'I
have suffered myself to be carried away by a burst of momentary impulse. I
brought up all my reserves, and have failed utterly. Nothing can save
me now, but a "change of front." It is the last bit of generalship
remaining--a change of front--a change of front!' And he repeated the words
over and over, as though hoping they might light up his ingenuity. 'I might
go and tell her that all I had been saying was mere jest--that I could
never have dreamed of asking her to follow me int