"What a tragic tone!" Her manner is all changed; she is laughing now. "Well, what did I mean? That your wife—— Stay!" with a little comic uplifting of her beautiful shoulders and an exaggerated show of fear, "do not assault me again. That your wife has shown the bad taste to prefer her cousin—her old lover—to you!"
"As I said, words, mere words," returns he, with a forced smile. "Because she speaks to him, dances with him, is civil to him, as she is civil to all guests——"
"Is she just as civil to all her guests?"
"I think so. It is my part to do her justice," says he coldly, "and,
I confess, I think her a perfect hostess, if——"
"If?"
"If wanting in a few social matters. As to her cousin, Mr. Hescott—being one of her few relations, she is naturally attentive to him."
"Very!"
"And she is——"
"Always with him!" Mrs. Bethune laughs again—always that low, sweet, cruel laughter. "Could attention farther go?"
"Always? Surely that is an exaggeration."