It was ill no pleasant mood that Kate took her way towards Lady Hester's apartment. The drawing-room, as she passed through it, still exhibited some of the signs of its recent ruin, and the servants were busied in collecting fragments of porcelain and flower-pots. Their murmured comments, hushed as she went by, told her how the occurrence was already the gossip of the household. It was impossible for her not to connect herself with the whole misfortune. “But for her” But she could not endure the thought, and it was with deep humiliation and trembling in every limb that she entered Lady Hester's chamber.
“Leave me, Celadon; I want to speak to Miss Dalton,” said Lady Hester to the hairdresser, who had just completed one half of her Ladyship's chevelure, leaving the other side pinned and rolled up in those various preparatory stages which have more of promise than picturesque about them. Her cheek was flushed, and her eyes sparkled with an animation that betrayed more passion than pleasure.
“What is this dreadful story I 've heard, child, and that the house is full of? Is it possible there can be any truth in it? Have these odious people actually dared to establish themselves here? Tell me, child speak!”
“Mrs. Ricketts became suddenly ill,” said Kate, trembling; “her dog threw down a china jar.”
“Not my Sevres jar? not the large green one, with the figures?”
“I grieve to say it was!”
“Go on. What then?” said Lady Hester, dryly.
“Shocked at the incident, and alarmed, besides, by the fall of a flower-stand, she fainted away, and subsequently was seized with what I supposed to be a convulsive attack, but to which her friends seemed perfectly accustomed, and pronounced not dangerous. In this dilemma they asked me if they might occupy my room. Of course I could not refuse, and yet felt, the while, that I had no right to extend the hospitality of this house. I saw the indelicacy of what I was doing. I was shocked and ashamed, and yet—”
“Go on,” said Lady Hester once more, and with a stern quietude of manner that Kate felt more acutely than even an angry burst of temper.
“I have little more to say; in fact, I know not what I am saying,” cried she, gulping to repress the torrent of suffering that was struggling within her.