'Not to your ladyship's hurt.'
Lady Oxford looked at him with eyes mournful in their reproach.
'Mr. Kelly bade you give these letters back to me at once,' she said; and then, with a great fervour of admiration, 'Mr. Kelly would have given them back to me at once.' It seemed as though the thought of the noble Mr. Kelly was the one thing which now enabled her to keep her faith in men.
'Very likely,' replied Montague coolly, who was not at all moved by the disparaging comparison of himself with the Parson. 'Mr. Kelly would have given them back to you at once had not your ladyship taken good care that a few locks and bars should hinder him. But I am not Mr. Kelly, and indeed it is well for your ladyship I am not. Had your ladyship betrayed me, why, when that pretty news-sheet was read out last night, I would have stood up before the whole company, and told boldly out how your ladyship came by the knowledge which gave you the power to betray me.'
The words and the stern voice in which they were spoken stung Lady Oxford into a passion. She forgot to deny that she had betrayed Mr. Kelly.
'It would have been an infamy!' she cried.
'A harsh critic might say that it would have matched an infamy.'
Her ladyship saw her mistake.
'There was nothing which Mr. Kelly could have said. Mr. Kelly was my friend, as I have told you frankly; but I did not betray him.'
'Your ladyship's livery is blue and silver, I think--a pretty notable livery even at night, as I had occasion to remark in Ryder Street.'