The Duchess rose to her feet slowly.
“Some other time, when you are calmer——” she began.
“I’m not going to be calm!” Molly cried fiercely. “And I’m not going to be good either—not in your way. Why should I? Why should I pretend to be ashamed of myself, and make long faces—repent, as you call it—to please you? I don’t want your good opinion. I never asked for it. All I want is for you to leave me alone. You think you are very good and gracious, I dare say, to talk to a girl like me. I don’t see it. If you really wanted to be kind, you would be kind to me now, as I am. It is easy enough to forgive people when they have left off doing what you don’t like; the thing is to forgive them while they are still doing it. If I joined the Salvation Army, and wore a poke-bonnet, you would have nothing to say against me. Bah! You’re like all the rest; I know you. Get us to go down at your feet and be miserable, and then you take credit for forgiving us. And that’s what you call Christianity!”
The Duchess had stumbled to the door and escaped before Molly lost her breath.
Alistair’s mother tottered down the yard, too much agitated to remember her pensioners, and Alistair’s wife lay on the high-art settle, with the copper pans gleaming down at her, and wept as if her heart would break.
CHAPTER XXI
THE HOUSE OF CATILINE
Among those friends of Lord Alistair’s who did not neglect him in his fallen state was the moving spirit of the Legitimist Guild.
The Comte des Louvres visited the house in Beers Cooperage, and professed himself enchanted with everything about it, but most of all with its nearness to Chestnut-Tree Walk.
“We are neighbours now,” he declared, “and I shall expect you to look me up very often. Drop in whenever you have nothing better to do.”
The Frenchman threw a flattering deference into his manner towards Molly now that her position seemed to be established. He was keen enough to see the direction in which her ambitions pointed, and he threw out hints of his ability to help her.