“Not really poor; your father is enormously rich, actually rolling in money.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about!” protested Cara querulously. “You are thinking of other people—my father is dead,” and she took another spoonful of ice.
“Well, yes, in a way. He is dead to your mother.”
Cara gazed at the speaker blankly, her eyes became round, the pupils looked like two small spots.
“Listen to me,” and as Miss Plassy leant across the table, spoon in hand, her voice was emphatic, and her manner forcible. “You must know some time, and I may as well tell you—they never will!”
“Tell me what?”
“Why, about your father and mother,” a pause, followed by a dramatic whisper, “he divorced her.”
“Miss Plassy, how dare you!” Cara’s face was crimson. “I don’t believe you,” she added hysterically.
“Oh, very well, please yourself, my dear,” she replied with a mixture of malice and gaiety. “The case was in all the papers, fourteen years ago. People in England knew all about it,—and my mother remembers it perfectly.”
Cara suddenly pushed away her plate, she was trembling violently, her lips quivered. Was she going to cry?