“Now consider exactly how Mr. Dundas stands,” she said. “He knows you are engaged to a friend of his, that you will be married in a few weeks, and he allows himself, left alone with you by accident, to make this declaration to you. Does that seem to you to be an honourable action?”
Then once again Madge flashed out.
“Ah, who cares?” she cried. “What does that matter?”
Lady Ellington rose.
“You have also promised to marry Philip,” she said. “I suppose that does not matter either? Or do I wrong you?”
“He would not wish me to marry him if he knew,” said Madge.
Lady Ellington poured out her glass of hot water, and sipped it in silence. She knew well that many words may easily spoil the effect of few, and her few, she thought, on the whole had been well chosen. So just as before she had refused to talk on any subject but one, so now, since she had said really just what she meant to say, she refused any longer to talk on it, but was agreeably willing, as Madge had been some ten minutes before, to talk about anything else.
“I think there will be more rain before morning,” she said.
Then Madge came close to her and knealt by her chair.
“Are you not even sorry for me, mother?” she said.