"Stop!" said Ora, with a stamp of her foot. "Go away."
"Not unpardoned?" implored Babba tragically. Ora could not help laughing, as she stretched out her hand in burlesque grandeur, and allowed him to kiss it.
"Anyhow, we'll see you through," he assured her as he went out, casting a glance back at the slim still figure in the middle of the room.
Partly because he had not come sooner, more from the shadow left by this conversation, she received Ashley Mead when he arrived in the afternoon with a distance of manner and a petulance which she was not wont to show towards him. She had now neither thanks for his labours in going to meet Mr. Fenning nor apologies for her desertion of him; she gave no voice to the joy for freedom which possessed her. Babba Flint had roused an uneasiness which demanded new and ample evidence of her power, a fresh assurance that she was everything to Ashley, a proof that though she might be all those women said she was, yet she was irresistible, conquering and to conquer. And her triumph should not be won by borrowing weapons or tactics from the enemy. She would win with her own sword, in her own way, as herself; she had rather exaggerate than soften what they blamed in her; still she would achieve her proof and win her battle.
There seemed indeed no battle to fight, for Ashley was very tender and friendly to her; he appeared, however, a little depressed. Pushing her experiment, she began to talk about Irene and Alice, and, as she put it, "that sort of woman."
"But they aren't at all the same sort of woman," he objected, smiling.
"Oh, yes, they are, if you compare them with me," she insisted, pursuing the path which Babba's reflections had shewn her.
"Well, they've certain common points as compared with you, perhaps," he admitted.
"They're good and I'm not."
"You aren't alarmingly bad," said Ashley, looking at her. He was wondering how she had come to marry Fenning.