"Nonsense!" says Lady Rylton; the idea strikes her as ludicrous. The surprise, the strange awakening to the young bride, who, if not in love with her husband, has at all events expected loyalty from him, has affected her not at all; but this suggestion of Margaret as a possible lover of Maurice's convulses her with amusement. "Margaret! No!"
"Who, then?" asks Tita.
"Marian—Marian Bethune."
"Mrs. Bethune!"
"Did you never guess? I fancied perhaps you had heard nothing, so I felt it my duty to let you into a little of the secret—to warn you. Marian might want to stay with you, for example—and Maurice——"
"Mrs. Bethune may stay with me with pleasure," says Tita. "Why not?"
"Why not?" Lady Rylton pauses as if choking. She had thought to lower this girl into the very dust, and revenge herself on Maurice at the same time by her shameful revelation. "You do not care, then?" says she, bitterly disappointed.
Tita does not answer her. Suddenly her young thoughts have gone backwards, and all at once she remembers many things. The poison has entered into her. In a moment, as it were, she is back in that dim conservatory where Maurice (he has never been "he" or "him" to her, as happier girls, who love more and are more beloved, would have styled him)—where Maurice had asked her to marry him.
Now, in some strange fashion, her memory grows alive and compels her to remember how he looked and spoke that night—that night of his proposal to her, when she had asked him if he loved his cousin.
There had been a queer, indescribable change in his face—a sudden pallor, a start! She had thought nothing of it then, but now it comes back to her. She had meant Margaret—Margaret whom she loves; but he—who had he meant?