“I won’t tell on you,” she promised. “You’ll get a worse wigging than I shall.” She scampered off on her tiptoes, giggling.
Rosamond decided, presently, that it was unbearable to be stared at as Miss Crewe was staring at her. She would break the silence, no matter what might come afterwards.
“It is very kind of you to come, Miss Crewe. I am sure that....”
“Oh what is the use of talking like that! I’m not Corinne. Don’t you suppose I know the meaning of Aunt Emma’s innuendoes and sneers—and her nods and winks? I’ve had years of them. Do you think I don’t know why she is here—and why she expects the immediate announcement of your engagement?”
“Miss Crewe!”
Ignoring Mrs. Mearely’s indignant interruption, Mabel rushed on:
“She’ll chaperon and stand by you; and you’ll tempt him with your money, to marry you, so that the rich Mrs. Mearely shall not be disgraced. I know!”
Rosamond did not take kindly to criticism at any time. In the last twelve hours she had received enough of it, she felt, to last her a life time. There was something more than offended protest rising in her now. It was battle that beat its drums in her temples and her pulses.
“How dare you?” She stepped forward, with her head high.
“Yes! I dare. But don’t think it will be so easy.” Of a sudden her insolence and derision melted away in suffering. She pleaded. “Oh how can you do it—if you love this other man? You have money. You can force people to accept him, even if he is a nobody. You don’t need to marry Wilton. And you know—everybody knows—that he’d have married me long ago, if we’d had any money.” Then she cried out, defiantly: “Don’t think you can do it, though! I’ll stop it somehow.”