Kitty was falling from amazement to amazement. She had seen a vast deal, one way and another, of Madame Mirabel’s milliner, and if ever there was, in her opinion, an honest, sensible, good-living young woman, it was Pamela Pounce.
“She don’t deny it. Miss Popple up and taxed her straight out, and she as good as admitted it. Not a bit ashamed, either.”
“Foh!” my Lady fumed. “Surely you’re not going to condemn your own flesh and blood on hearsay, woman?”
“My Lady,” Lydia began to pant, as if she suddenly remembered how hard she had been running. “I’m back from Madame Mirabel’s this moment, and seen Pamela, and oh, the audacity of her! Laughing in my face, and tossing her head! ‘And ’tis true,’ cries she, ‘the little rogue is dark. And if I prefer ’em dark,’ says she, ‘what then?’”
“‘Ho, Miss,’ says I, ‘your taste lies in the dark line,’ says I. ‘That’s no surprise to me you bold hussy!’ And then, my Lady, you’ll never believe it, she regular insulted me.
“‘Well,’ she says, ‘and if I do prefer a dark gentleman, ain’t a body free to have their fancy? There’s you,’ she says, ‘as likes them fat and cat-footed, with a wheeze and a paunch,’ referring, my Lady, to the attentions Mr. Blandfoot is paying me. And then I answers her back:
“‘I’m sure, you wicked girl, if Mr. Blandfoot and I ever agree to settle, it’ll be as man and wife, respectable and respected.’”
“‘Why, lud, aunt,’ she says, ‘you have a nasty mind.’ And more than that, my Lady, I couldn’t get out of her, it being her busy time. And—oh, dear, to be sure!—was there ever such a desperate bit of work? Her getting on so well, fought over by the ladies, I may say!”
Lady Kilcroney allowed the lamentations to continue without interruption for some time, her own thoughts being concentrated on the painful problem. The more she reflected upon it, the more, alas! she began to believe in the story.
Old Bellairs’s nephew was a sad dog—a handsome, plausible, dashing, insidious rascal—she knew that. And that he had pursued Pamela with his attentions, she was also aware. The girl’s attitude of defiance could hardly go with innocence, and there was that strange story about the debt. Now, Kitty liked Pamela, and she had a certain sympathy, too, with a spirit that refused to humiliate itself on a question of private conduct.