"Will you understand, once for all, mother, that I have not married a dairy-maid?" he cried. "My wife is a wonder of beauty; she is dainty and lovely as a princess. Only see her, you would change your opinion at once."
"I hope never to do that. As for seeing her, I shall never so far lose my own self-respect as to allow such a person to speak to me."
Lord Chandos shook his head with a rueful smile.
"If you had ever seen Leone, mother, you would laugh at the idea of calling her a person," he said.
Lady Lanswell moved her hand with a gesture of superb pride.
"Nay, do not continue the subject. If the girl was not actually a dairy-maid, in all probability she was not far removed from it. I have no wish to discuss the question. You have stained the hitherto stainless name of your family by the wretched mistake you call a marriage."
"I do not call it a marriage; it is one," he said.
And then my lady's face grew even paler.
"It is not one. I thank Heaven that the law of the land is just and good; that it very properly refuses to recognize the so-called marriage of a hot-headed boy. You have ignored our letters on the subject, you have laughed at all threats, treated with disdain all advice; now you will find your level. The judicial decree has been pronounced; the marriage you have talked of with such bravado is no marriage; the woman you have insulted me by mentioning is not your wife."
She neither trembled nor faltered when he turned to her with a white, set face.