Let me tell you all about it, Helene. Do you remember that night in
the conservatory last winter, when you treated me so cruelly? Yes, I
own I was a wild animal; but you might have tamed me, and instead you
infuriated me. I went from you to Wanda, the Indian girl with whom I
flirted last summer. She was in civilized garb, in my mother's home,
quiet as a bird that has been driven by the storms of winter into a
place of shelter. I too had been tempest-driven, and her warm welcome,
her beauty and tenderness, stole away my senses. She soothed my
injured vanity, satisfied my desperate hunger for love, and I lived
for weeks in the belief that we were made for each other. But with the
return of summer the untamed spirit of her race took possession of
her, and when I saw her with you,--ah, dearest, is there need for me
to say more? I cannot marry her; every fibre of my being, every
sentiment of my soul, revolts from it; but neither am I such a monster
of iniquity as to try to win any one else, and found my lifelong
happiness upon that poor girl's broken-hearted despair. No, Helene,
you have no right to look at me in that way.
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