"You are unjust and cruel," said the girl, roused by these arbitrary words.
Miss Vanhorn waved her hand for silence.
"If you will let me tell you, aunt—"
The old woman bounded forward suddenly, as if on springs, seized her niece by both shoulders, and shook her with all her strength. "There!" she said, breathless. "Will you stop talking! All I want is your answer—yes, or no."
The drawing-room of Madame Moreau had certainly never witnessed such a sight as this. One of its young ladies shaken—yes, absolutely shaken like a refractory child! The very chairs and tables seemed to tremble, and visibly hope that there was no one in the salon des élèves, behind.
Anne was more startled than hurt by her grandaunt's violence. "I am sorry to displease you," she said, slowly and very gravely; "but I can not break my engagement."
Without a word, Miss Vanhorn drew her shawl round her shoulders, pinned it, crossed the room, opened the door, and was gone. A moment later her carriage rolled away, and Anne, alone in the drawing-room, listened to the sound of the wheels growing fainter and fainter, with a chilly mixture of blank surprise, disappointment, and grief filling her heart. "But it was right that I should tell her," she said to herself as she went up stairs—"it was right."
Right and wrong always presented themselves to her as black and white. She knew no shading. She was wrong; there are grays. But, so far in her life, she had not been taught by sad experience to see them. "It was right," she repeated to Helen, a little miserably, but still steadfastly.
"I am not so sure of that," replied Mrs. Lorrington. "You have lost a year's fixed income for those children, and a second winter here for yourself; and for what? For the sake of telling the dragon something which does not concern her, and which she did not wish to know."
"But it was true."