But she couldn’t pull herself together without a sense of outrage. She had expected to feel shame, vicariously for Rash; she had not expected to be asked to take part in a horrible bit of play-acting. This dressing-up; this mock hospitality; this desecration of the things which “dear Mrs. Allerton” had used; this mingling of ignorance and pretentiousness, inspired a rage prompting her to fling the back of her hand at the ridiculous creature’s face. She couldn’t do that, of course. She couldn’t even express herself as she felt. She had come on a mission, and she must carry out that mission; and to carry out the mission she must be as suave as her indignation would allow of. She was morally the mistress of this house. Rash and all 196 Rash owned belonged to her. To see this strumpet sitting in her place....
It did nothing to calm her that while she was pressing Rash’s ring into her flesh, beneath her glove, this vile thing was wearing a plain gold band, just as if she was married. She could understand that if they had absurdly walked through an absurd ceremony the absurd minister who performed it might have insisted on this absurd symbol; but it should have been snatched from the creature’s hand the minute the business was ended. They owed that to her. Hers was the only claim Rash had to consider, and to allow this farce to be enacted beneath his roof....
But she remembered that Letty didn’t know who she was, or why she had come, or the degree to which she, Barbara Walbrook, saw through this foolery.
Letty repeated her little formula: “Lemon?—cream?—one lump?—two lumps?” though before she reached the end of it her voice began to fail. Catching the hostility in the other woman’s bearing, she felt it the more acutely because in style, dress, and carriage this was the model she would have chosen for herself.
Miss Walbrook waved hospitality aside. “Thank you, no; nothing in the way of tea.” She nodded over her shoulder towards William’s retreating form. “Who’s that man?”
Her tone was that of a person with the right to inquire. Letty didn’t question that right, knowing the extent to which she herself was an usurper. “His name is William.”
“How did he come here?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Where are Nettie and Jane?”