“And probably be absent for several weeks,” added he.
Still she never spoke, but seemed busily examining the embroidered coronet on the corner of her handkerchief.
“And as circumstances require—I mean, as I shall be obliged to go alone, and as it would be highly inconvenient, not to say unusual, for a young married woman, more especially in the rank you occupy, to remain in an hotel alone, without friends or relatives, we have thought—that is, Georgy and I have considered—that you should stay with her.”
Lizzy only smiled; but what that strange smile might signify it was far beyond Beecher's skill to read.
“There is only one difficulty in the matter,” resumed he; “and as it is a difficulty almost entirely created by yourself, you will naturally be the more ready to rectify it.” He waited long enough to provoke a question from her, but she seemed to have no curiosity on the subject, and did not speak.
“I mean,” added he, more boldly, “that before accepting my sister's hospitality, you must necessarily make some amende for the manner in which you have just treated her.”
“In which I treated her!” said Lizzy, after him, her utterance being slow and totally passionless.
“Yes, these were my words,” said he.
“Have you forgotten how she treated me?” asked Lizzy, in the same calm tone.
“As to that,” said he, with a sort of fidgety confusion,—“as to that, you ought to bear in mind who she is—what she is—and then it's Georgy's way; even among her equals—those well born as herself—she has always been permitted to exercise a certain sort of sway; in fact, the world of fashion has decreed her a sort of eminence. You cannot understand these things yet, though you may do so, one day or other. In a word, she can do what you cannot, and must not, and the sooner you know it the better.”