‘Can’t you see,’ cries she, with a proud humility, ‘how wrong you must be? How could I interfere between Mr. Wyndham and the woman he loves? Who am I? Nothing!’ She throws up her beautiful head with a touch of inalienable pride, and repeats the word distinctly: ‘Nothing!’
‘Less than nothing,’ says Mrs. Prior, who is only moved to increased and unendurable hatred by her beauty and her unconscious hauteur. ‘So far as he regards you!’
Ella draws her breath quickly.
‘If so small in his regard, how then do I prevent his marriage with the girl he loves?’
Alas for the sorrow of her voice! It might have touched the heart of anyone. Mrs. Prior, however, is impervious to such touches.
‘Don’t you think it very absurd, your pretending like this?’ says she contemptuously.
‘Of course, in spite of the absurd innocence you pretend, one can see that you quite understand the situation, and how unpleasantly you are in the way. If he had brought you anywhere but here, it might have been hushed up, but to the very house his poor mother left him—why, it is an open scandal, and an insult to my daughter!’
The girl makes a shocked gesture.
‘It is your daughter, then? But’—quickly—‘now you know he doesn’t love me, and you can tell her—and——’ She is looking eagerly, with almost passionate hope, at Mrs. Prior.
‘Tell her! Tell my daughter about you!’ Mrs. Prior’s voice is terrible. ‘How dare you suggest the idea of my speaking to my girl of——’ She checks herself with difficulty, and goes on coldly: ‘No doubt you believe Mr. Wyndham will be to you always as he is now. Women of your class delude themselves like that. But—when he marries—as he will—as he shall—you will learn that a wife is one thing and a mis——’