“That I am a divorcée. There!” she cried, facing him, “the murder is out!”
“What!” he exclaimed in a voice that, although not loud, made her start. “You dare,” he said slowly, “to repeat such a tale to me?”
“I had no choice; you would hear it. There is no use in being angry with me; it is not my fault. You know very well that I do not deserve such a stigma—that every thought in my heart belongs to Maurice, and,” she added almost under her breath—“you.”
His sharp ears caught the last word.
“That is putting it strongly indeed. Nothing could be more forcible,” he replied with a sneer. “So they say you are a divorcée?” he continued, his passion repressed but at a white heat all the same, looking her over from head to foot. “Where are the grounds for this most infernal scandal that ever was hatched by evil-tongued old women? What is the story?” he asked vehemently.
“I do not know,” replied Alice, now perfectly composed. “Of course I would be the last to hear.”
“It does not appear to concern you much,” he exclaimed angrily.
“No, not much,” she replied, looking at him with her clear, frank, truthful eyes.
“By Jove, then it concerns me! Society about here wants a lesson in good manners and hospitality if in nothing else. If I can find out the originator of this outrageous calumny it will be worse for him. I believe, if he was here now, I would——But never mind, what is the good of blustering about it to you? I shall act, that is more to the purpose. How can you be thought a divorcée when you were never divorced? The story is senseless; you imagine it, perhaps.”
“It is not imagination that no one ever calls here, is it?” she asked dryly. “I believe it is thought that you sent me to Monkswood to hush up scandal and to save the Fairfax name, and that I am really as bad as ever I can be.”