“Mercy! Mrs. Bruce—” she said, nerving herself for some disaster. “How white you are! Has something happened? Or are you ill?”
With her care-taking impulse Betsy tried to remove her mistress’s wrap, but the lady twitched away from her. She had been nursing her wrath to keep it warm, and it was very warm indeed; but something in Betsy’s presence, in the gaze of those honest eyes, threatened to make the enormity of the latter’s offense shrink. Mrs. Bruce was obliged to remember the attitude of Irving’s head as he walked away with Mrs. Nixon, careless of her own opinions or feelings, forgetful of her,—utterly forgetful of her for the first time in her remembrance. Her narrow mind, tenacious of its two idols,—her own importance and her boy,—suffered intensely.
“Stand away from me!” she cried; and Betsy, too dumfounded to move, stared mutely while the vials of Mrs. Bruce’s wrath began to pour out.
“We have been too kind to you. You forget your place. What right had you to do such a thing as to place Rosalie Vincent where she must be accepted as a companion by people of our class? What right had you to interfere so with the pleasure of our summer? Ask yourself why you told me nothing about it. You will say, if you are honest, that it was because you knew I would not approve. I have done everything for the Vincent girl that has been done. I had a right to be consulted, at least. But you, forgetting that you were my servant, went on, managing to ruin our summer, spending, like a fool, your long years’ savings to bring that girl east, and dress her unsuitably, leaving me, and putting me to inconvenience in order to do so, going entirely out of your sphere, and making yourself a special providence. You think yourself so clever! Clever Betsy, indeed! Your head is turned. It is largely our fault!”
She paused, panting. Betsy stood in the same spot, but her anxious face had settled into lines of stony stillness. Only her eyes kept fixed on Mrs. Bruce’s face.
“Speak!” cried the latter, hysterically. “How did you dare do this thing?”
There was another space of silence, then Betsy did speak.
“Is there anything more you want to say about it, Mrs. Bruce?”
The lady shrugged her shoulders angrily, and moving to the divan dropped off her downy wrap.