And yet he had behaved well, even quixotically. He had tried to leave
the impression with her that it was her wish, and that she had broken
with him, not he with her.
He held a man who threw a girl over as something contemptible, and he
certainly did not want to appear to himself in that light; or, for her
sake, that people should think he had tired of her, or found her
wanting in any one particular. He knew only too well how people would
talk. How they would say he had never really cared for her; that he
didn't know his own mind when he had proposed to her; and that it was
a great deal better for her as it is than if he had grown out of humor
with her later. As to their saying she had jilted him, he didn't mind
that. He much preferred they should take that view of it, and he was
chivalrous enough to hope she would think so too.
He was walking slowly, and had reached Thirtieth Street. A great many
young girls and women had bowed to him or nodded from the passing
carriages, but it did not tend to disturb the measure of his thoughts.
He was used to having people put themselves out to speak to him;
everybody made a point of knowing him, not because he was so very
handsome and well-looking, and an over-popular youth, but because he
was as yet unspoiled by it.
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