Part 67 (1/2)

”I--_I?”_ says Lady Rylton. In all her long, tyrannical life she has met with so few people to show her defiance, that now this girl's contemptuous reply daunts her. ”You forget yourself,” says she, with ill-suppressed fury.

”No, indeed,” says t.i.ta, ”it is because I remember myself that I spoke like that. And I think it will save time,” says she quietly, ”and perhaps a good deal of temper too--mine,” smiling coldly, ”is not good, you know--if you understand at once that I shall not allow you to say insolent things like that to me.”

_ ”You_ allow _me!”_ Tessie gets up from her chair and stares at her opponent, who remains seated, looking back at her. ”I see you have made up your mind to ruin my son,” says she, changing her tone to one of tearful indignation. ”You accepted him, you married him, but you have never made even an effort to love him.”

Here Tessie sinks back in her chair and covers her eyes with her handkerchief. This is her way of telling people she is crying; it saves the rouge and the powder, and leaves the eye-lashes as black as before.

”It is not always easy to love someone who is in love with someone else,” says t.i.ta.

”Someone else! What do you mean?”

”There is one fault, at all events, that you cannot find with me,”

says t.i.ta; ”I have not got a bad memory. As if it were only yesterday, I remember how you enlightened me about Maurice's affection”--she would have said ”love,” but somehow she cannot--”for--for Mrs. Bethune.”

”Pouf!” says the dowager. _”That!_ I don't see how that can influence your conduct. You married my son, and you ought to do your duty by him. As for Marian, if you had been a good wife you should have taught him to forget all that long ago. It seems you have not.”

She darts this barbed arrow with much joy, and watches for the pain it ought to have caused, but watches in vain. ”The fact of your remembering it all this time only shows,” says Tessie vindictively, angry at the failure of her dart, ”what a malicious spirit you have.

You are not only malicious, but silly! People of the world _never_ remember unpleasant things.”

”Well, I am not of them; I remember,” says t.i.ta. She pauses. ”People of the world seem to me to do strange things.”

”On the contrary,” with a sneer, ”it is people who are not in society who do strange things.”

”Meaning me?” flus.h.i.+ng and frowning. t.i.ta's temper is beginning to give way. ”What have I done now?” asks she.

”That is what I have been trying to explain,” says Lady Rylton, ”but your temper is so frightful that I am afraid to go into anything.

Temper, my dear t.i.ta, should always be one's slave; it should never be given liberty except in one's room, with one's own maid or one's own husband.”

”Or one's own mother-in-law!”

”Well, yes! Quite so!” says Tessie with a fine shrug. ”If you _will_ make me one apart, so be it. I hate scenes; but when one has a son--a precious, _only_ child--one must make sacrifices.”

”I beg you will make none for _me.”_

”I have made one already, however. I have permitted my son to marry you.”

”Lady Rylton----”

”Be silent!” says Tessie, in a low but terrible voice. ”How _dare_ you interrupt me, or speak to me at all, until I ask for a reply?

_You,_ whom I have brought from the very depths, to a decent position in society! You--whom I have raised!”

”Raised!”

”Yes--you! I tell you you owe me a debt you never can repay.”

”I do indeed,” says t.i.ta, in a low voice; her small firm hands are clasped in front of her--they are tightly clenched.

”You married him for ambition,” goes on Tessie, with cold hatred in her voice and eye, ”and----”

”And he?” The girl has risen now, and is clinging with both hands to the arms of her chair. She is very pale.