“To be sure he does; I thought I had told you what brought him over here! The old meddling humbug, in his grand benevolence vein, wants to smooth down the difficulties between Lucy Lendrick and Trafford, one of which was thought to be the fellow's attachment to you. Don't blush; take it as coolly as I do. I 'm not sure whether reading the correspondence aloud isn't the best way to dispel this illusion. You can say that better than I can.”
“Trafford never wrote one line to me of which I should be afraid or ashamed to see in print.”
“These are matters of taste. There are scores of women like publicity, and would rather be notorieties for scandal than models of unnoticed virtue, so we 'll not discuss that. There, there; don't look so supremely indignant and contemptuous. That expression became you well enough at three-and-twenty; but ten years, ten long years of not the very smoothest existence, leave their marks!”
She shook her head mournfully, but in silence.
“At all events,” resumed he, “declare that you object to the letters being in other hands than your own; and as to a certain paper of mine,—a perfectly worthless document, as he well knows,—let him give it to you or burn it in your presence.”
She pushed her hair back from her temples, and pressed her hands to either side of her head, as though endeavoring to collect her thoughts, and rally herself to an effort of calm determination'.
“How much of this is true?” said she, at last.
“What do you mean?” said he, sternly.
“I mean this,” said she, resolutely,—“that I want to know, if you should get this money, is it really your intention to go abroad?”
“You want a pledge from me on this?” said he, with a jeering laugh. “You are not willing to stoop to all this humiliation without having the price of it afterwards? Is not that your meaning?”