Christine was cold and composed. Never had her delicately critical manner been more pronounced.
"I'm sure I hope you repent," she observed meditatively; "and I hope you thank heaven that man was what he turned out to be."
"Well, call it repentance, then. I suppose I've a right to repent? You can't understand how I really feel. But if it is repentance, why need you discourage it?"
"I don't discourage repentance, and I'm glad you're beginning to see that you ought to repent. But it's not that I'm thinking of."
"What are you thinking of, then?" cried Sibylla in unrestrained impatience.
"You're prepared for an open quarrel?"
"Oh, I shan't quarrel with you!" Her smile was rather disdainful.
"No, you won't quarrel with me; I'm not of enough importance to you! I'm very glad I'm not, you know. Being important to you doesn't seem to be consistent with being an independent creature."
Sibylla glanced at her in arrested attention.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked in low quick tones. The charge was so strangely like that which she was for ever formulating against Grantley. Now Christine levelled it at her.