Mrs. Heron wagged her head, as one who is not to be deceived by any affectation of innocence.
"No, thank you, Ida!" she exclaimed. "That won't do for us. We've seen it with our own eyes, haven't we, Isabel?"
Isabel took out her handkerchief and began to whimper.
"I should never have thought it of you, Ida," she sobbed. "And with George, too! And I'd only just told you that—that there had been things between us. I do think you might have left him alone."
Ida was half distracted.
"But you really cannot mean it!" she pleaded. "I have done nothing, said nothing. You surely do not complain of his speaking to me, of his being simply civil and polite! Heaven knows I had no desire to exchange a word with him. I would not have come down if Isabel had not asked me, and I had thought you would have considered it rude of me to remain upstairs. Oh, what can I say to convince you that you are mistaken, that I never gave a thought to this gentleman—I forget his name—that I do not care if I never see him again, and that—Isabel, surely you do not think me capable of the—vulgarity, the stupidity, with which your mother charges me!"
Isabel's sniffs and sobs only grew louder, and her demonstrative misery worked Mrs. Heron to a higher pitch of resentment and virtuous indignation.
"That is right, Isabel, do not answer her. It is all pretence and deceit on her part. She knows very well that she was doing her best to attract his attention, smiling and making eyes at him, and attempting to catch him just as she has caught poor Joseph."
Ida's slight figure sprang erect, her face grew crimson and her eyes flashed with a just wrath which could no longer be suppressed.
"I think you must be mad," she said in a low voice. "Indeed, you must be mad, or you would not insult me in this way. If I were guilty of the conduct of which you accuse me, I should not be fit to live, should not be fit to remain in any respectable house."