Moll rallied her wits for the inevitable combat.
“Sure,” she said, “hasn’t your ladyship ever felt the delight of climbing in by the window when you might enter by the open door?”
“I prefer direct ways to underhand,” was the chilling response.
“Try a stolen kiss before you answer for that,” said Moll.
“Thank you. I leave that sort of thing to you.”
“What do you mean, now, by ‘that sort of thing’? Does a Royal Duke count in it? because ’tis not every time he’s to be found coming in by the open door.”
“Your knowledge of the customs of princes,” said Kate icily, but with a curious little tremble in her voice, “is, of course, very profound; so you will be aware that they can claim privileges denied to others.”
“Is that so, now? Then what call had my lord your husband to get into such a tantrum about it, when I told him that the Duke of York had been paying you a visit?”
Seismographically, as it were, she was conscious of the shock her words produced. Kate shivered, and seemed to stiffen.
“I am not answerable for his lordship’s tantrums, as you call them,” she said in a stifled way, “any more than for his tastes and predilections. If any malicious wretch has chosen to carry slanderous tales to him, and he to listen to them——”