"To be rude is not to be forcible," says Tessie, who is now a fury, "and I believe all that I have heard about you!" She makes a quick movement towards Tita, her colour showing even through the washes that try to make her skin look young. "How dare you insult me?" cries she furiously. Tessie in a rage is almost the vulgarest thing that anyone could see. "I wish my son had never seen you—or your money. I wish now he had married the woman he loved, instead of the woman whom——"
"He hated," puts in Tita very softly.
She smiles in a sort of last defiance, but every hope she has seems lying dead. In a second, as it were, she seems to care for nothing. What is there to care for? It is so odd. But it is true! How blank the whole thing is!
"Yes. Hated!" says Tessie in a cold fury. "I tell you he wanted to marry Marian, and her only. He would have given his soul for her, but she would not marry him! And then, when hope was at an end, he—destroyed self—he married you!"
"You are very plain! You leave nothing to be said." Tita has compelled herself to this answer, but her voice is faint. Her poor little face, beautiful even in its distress, is as white as death. "I am sorry——"
"For Maurice? So you ought to be," says Lady Rylton, unmoved even by that pathetic face before her.
Tita turns upon her. All at once the old spirit springs to life within the poor child's breast.
"No, for myself!" cries she, with a bitterness hardly to be described.