‘I do. What is there to be ashamed of?’
‘I see, you know nothing of the prior attachment,’ said Percy, not without anger at her pertinacity.
‘A boy and girl liking that had been long past.’
‘O it had, had it?’ said Percy, ironically. ‘So you approve her marrying an old rogue and miser, who had heaped up his hoards by extortion of wretched Indians and Spaniards, the very scum of Mammon, coming to the top like everything detestable?’
‘I never heard his money was ill-gotten.’
‘Those who spend don’t ask whence gold comes. And you justify her keeping the old love, this cousin, dangling about her house all the winter till she is the talk of Paris!’
‘I don’t believe gossip.’
‘Can you deny that he is in London in her train?’
‘He has come into some property, and means to turn over a new leaf.’
‘Ay, and a worse leaf than before.’