She withers Sir Nicholas with a parting glance, and then quits the room, Violet in her train, leaving her eldest son entirely puzzled.
"What does she mean?" asks he of his brother, who is distinctly amused. "Does she wish poor old Geoff had married a bad one? I confess myself at fault."
And so does Captain Rodney.
Meantime, Violet is having rather a bad time in the boudoir. Lady Rodney refuses to see light anywhere, and talks on in a disjointed fashion about this disgrace that has befallen the family.
"Of course I shall never receive her; that is out of the question, Violet: I could not support it."
"But she will be living only six miles from you, and the county will surely call, and that will not be nice for you," says Violet.
"I don't care about the county. It must think what it likes; and when it knows her it will sympathize with me. Oh! what a name! Scully! Was there ever so dreadful a name?"
"It is not a bad name in Ireland. There are very good people of that name: the Vincent Scullys,—everybody has heard of them," says Violet, gently. But her friend will not consent to believe anything that may soften the thought of Mona. The girl has entrapped her son, has basely captured him and made him her own beyond redemption; and what words can be bad enough to convey her hatred of the woman who has done this deed?
"I meant him for you," she says, in an ill-advised moment, addressing the girl who is bending over her couch assiduously and tenderly applying eau-de-cologne to her temples. It is just a little too much. Miss Mansergh fails to see the compliment in this remark. She draws her breath a little quickly, and as the color comes her temper goes.
"Dear Lady Rodney, you are really too kind," she says, in a tone soft and measured as usual, but without the sweetness. In her heart there is something that amounts as nearly to indignant anger as so thoroughly well-bred and well regulated a girl can feel. "You are better, I think," she says, calmly, without any settled foundation for the thought; and then she lays down the perfume-bottle, takes up her handkerchief, and, with a last unimportant word or two, walks out of the room.