"She was vulgar. That was not her fault; I forgive her that. What I can't forgive her, is the fact that you should have met me in her house."
"A little unfair, isn't it?"
"Is it? You will always now associate me with her!"
"I shan't indeed. Do you think I have up to this? Nonsense! A more absurd amalgamation I couldn't fancy."
"She was not one of us," feverishly. "I have never spoken to you about this, Freddy, since that first letter your father wrote to you just after our marriage. You remember it? And then, I couldn't explain somehow—but now—this last letter has upset me dreadfully; I feel as if it was all different, and that it was my duty to make you aware of the real truth. Sir George thinks of me as one beneath him; that is not true. He may have heard that I lived with Mrs. Burke, and that she was my aunt; but if my mother's brother chose to marry a woman of no family because she had money,"—contemptuously, "that might disgrace him, but would not make her kin to us. You saw her, you—" lifting distressed eyes to his—"you thought her dreadful, didn't you?"
"I have only had one thought about her. That she was good to you in your trouble, and that but for her I should never have met you."
"That is like you," says she gratefully, yet impatiently. "But it isn't enough. I want you to understand that she is quite unlike my own real people—my father, who was like a prince," throwing up her head, "and my uncle, his brother."
"You have an uncle, then?" with some surprise.
"Oh no, had," sadly.
"He is dead then?"