It was not a pleasant sight. Unbridled rage never is, even when in a good cause, and these two undisciplined women had lost all dignity and said very bad things to each other.
Brigit's one excuse was her mistaken assumption that her mother had believed Carron's story, and when Lady Kingsmead had shrieked out everything else that she thought might hurt her daughter, she added, "I believed in you, you little brute, though he said he saw you there. I might have known he wouldn't have dared to make up such a tale."
Brigit, who had stood quite still, now spoke. "Then—you believe him now?"
"Yes, I do!" lied Lady Kingsmead, goaded by the sneer on her daughter's fierce mouth.
There was a long pause, and then Brigit Mead went to the door.
"I am sorry I lost my temper and made such a beast of myself," she said slowly, "and—I will never speak to you again as long as I live."
She closed the door gently and went upstairs to her room.
It was done now, decided, her boats were burnt. From this day henceforth she would be spoken of as the queer Mead girl who doesn't live with her mother.
While she dressed for dinner she laid her plans with the quickness native to her. She would dine and dance at the Newlyns, and then she would go to the Joyselles' for the night.
The next day she would go and talk to a girl friend who had a flat in huge and horrible "Mansions" out Kensington way. She would live alone with a maid; and she would have to pinch and scrape—but that would not matter. And then—Joyselle would come to see her, and very probably some day they would lose their heads, and it would be her mother's fault. There was much satisfaction in this reflection, for she ignored the fact that in all probability the crisis had been only precipitated by her mother's speech.