I had broken it off.

We were going to let it be known the next day.' 'On the very eve of the wedding!' 'Yes.' Mr.Van Torp fixed his eyes on Margaret's again.

'On the very eve of the wedding,' he said, repeating her words.
He spoke very slowly and without emphasis, but with the greatest possible distinctness.

Margaret had once been taken to see a motor-car manufactory and she remembered a machine that clipped bits off the end of an iron bar, inch by inch, smoothly and deliberately.

Mr.Van Torp's lips made her think of that; they seemed to cut the hard words one by one, in lengths.
'Poor girl!' she sighed, and looked away.
The man's face did not change, and if his next words echoed the sympathy she expressed his tone did not.
'I was a good deal cut up myself,' he observed coolly.