The Hoyden Part 65

"I am--I am indeed!" cries t.i.ta. "I'm sure I can't think how I ever said it to you! It was so rude--so horrid----"

"Said? _What?"_ demands Rylton, with quick suspicion.

"Well, you know I did call you a _cross cat!"_ says his wife, with a little slide glance at him, and a tremulous smile, and withal such lovely penitence, that if he had not been led astray by another thought, he would have granted her absolution for all her sins, here and hereafter, on the spot.

As it is, his wrath grows once more hot within him; so she is _not _sorry after all.

"Pshaw!" says he.

"Oh, and I called you ugly, too!" cries t.i.ta. "Oh, how _could_ I?

But you will forgive me, won't you?" She runs after him, and lays her hand upon his arm. "You do forgive me, don't you?"

_ "No!"_ says he violently.

He almost flings her from him.

"Hypocrite!" he says to himself, as he fastens the door of his own room.

A baby's face, and the heart of a liar! She had played with him; she had fooled him; she had, at all events, refused to say she regretted her conduct with her cousin.

He goes down to the garden, feeling it impossible to sleep just now, and, coming back two hours later, finds the ring he had given her lying on his dressing-table. There is no note with it--not even a single line.

CHAPTER IX.

HOW MRS. BETHUNE IS BROUGHT BEFORE THE BAR; AND HOW SHE GIVES HER EVIDENCE AGAINST t.i.tA; AND HOW MAURICE'S MOTHER DESIRES AN INTERVIEW WITH MAURICE'S WIFE.

"And now for the news," says the elder Lady Rylton, next morning, leaning back in her chair; she objects to the word "Dowager."

Contrary to all expectations, she had arrived to-day at half-past eight, and is now, at one o'clock, sitting in her room with Mrs.

Bethune before her. She had seen t.i.ta, of course; but only for a moment or so, as she had been in a hurry to get to her bedroom and her maid, and have the ravages that travel had laid upon her old-young face obliterated. She had, indeed, been furious (secretly) with t.i.ta for having come out of her room to bid her welcome--such bad taste, obtruding one's self upon a person in the early hours of the morning, when one has only just left a train. But what _can_ one expect from a plebeian!

"News?" says Marian, lifting her brows.

"Well," testily, "I suppose there is some! How is the _menage_ going on? How is it being managed, eh? You have a tongue, my dear--speak!

I suppose you can tell me something!"

"Something! Yes."

"What does that mean?"

"A great deal," says Mrs. Bethune.

"Then you can tell me a great deal. Begin--begin!" says Lady Rylton, waving her hand in her airiest style. "I guessed as much! I always hated that girl! Well--and so---- _Do_ go on!"

"I hardly know what you expect me to say," says Mrs. Bethune coldly, and with a hatred very badly suppressed.

"You know perfectly well," says her aunt. "I wish to know how Maurice and his wife are getting on."

"How can I answer that?" says Marian, turning upon her like one brought to bay.

It is _too_ bitter to her, this cross-examination; it savours of a servitude that she must either endure or--starve!

"It is quite simple," says Lady Rylton. She looks at Marian with a certain delight in her eyes--the delight that tyrants know. She has this creature at her heels, and she will drag her to her death. "I am waiting," says she. "My good girl, why _don't_ you answer? What of Maurice and his wife?"

"They are not on good terms, I think," says Mrs. Bethune sullenly.

"No? And whose fault is that?" Lady Rylton catches the tip of Marian's gown, and draws her to her. When she has made her turn, so that she can study and gloat over the rapid changes of her face, she says, "Yours?" in a light, questioning way.

She smiles as she asks her question--a hateful smile. There is something in it almost devilish--a compelling of the woman before her to remember days that _should_ be dead, and a secret that should have been hers alone.

"Not mine, certainly," says Marian, clearing her throat as though it is a little dry, but otherwise defying the scrutiny of the other.

"And yet you say they are not on good terms!" Lady Rylton pauses as if thinking, and then goes on. "No wonder, too," says she, with a shrug. "Two people with two such tempers!"

"Has t.i.ta a temper?" asks Marian indifferently.

Lady Rylton regards her curiously.

"Have you not found that out yet?" asks she.

"No," coldly.

"It argues badly for you," says her aunt, with a small, malicious smile. "She has shown you none of it, then?"

"None," distinctly.

"My dear Marian, I am afraid Maurice is proving false," says Lady Rylton, leaning back in her chair, and giving way to soft, delicate mirth--the mirth that suits her Dresden china sort of beauty.

"Evidently our dear t.i.ta is not _afraid_ of you."

"You take a wrong reading of it, perhaps," says Mrs. Bethune, who is now, in spite of all her efforts to be emotionless, a little pale.

"She is simply so indifferent to Maurice, that she does not care whom he likes or dislikes--with whom he spends--or wastes his time.

Or with whom he----"

"Flirts?" puts in Lady Rylton, lifting her brows; there is most insolent meaning in her tone.

For the first time Mrs. Bethune loses herself; she turns upon her aunt, her eyes flashing.

"Maurice does not flirt with me," says she.

It seems horrible--_horrible,_ that thought. Maurice--his love--it surely is hers! And to talk of it as a mere flirtation! Oh _no!_ Her very soul seems to sink within her.

"My good child, who was speaking of you?" says Lady Rylton, with a burst of amus.e.m.e.nt. "You should control yourself, my dear Marian. To give yourself away like that is to suffer defeat at any moment. One would think you were a girl in your first season, instead of being a mature married woman. Well, and if not with you, with whom does Maurice flirt?"

"With no one." Marian has so far commanded herself as to be able now to speak collectedly. "If you will keep to the word 'flirtation,'

you must think of t.i.ta, though perhaps 'flirtation' is too mild a word to----"