Charlotte dragged her chair a pace nearer so that her knees touched Francie.
“Ye needn’t tell me any lies, Miss; if he didn’t propose, he said something that was equivalent to a proposal. Isn’t that the case?”
Francie had withdrawn herself as far into the corner of the window as was possible, and the dark folds of the maroon rep curtain made a not unworthy background for her fairness. Her head was turned childishly over her shoulder in the attempt to get as far as she could from her tormentor, and her eyes travelled desperately and yet unconsciously over the dingy lines of the curtain.
“I told you already, Charlotte, that he didn’t propose to me,” she answered; “he just paid a visit here like anyone else, and then he had to go away early.”
“Don’t talk such baldherdash to me! I know what he comes here for as well as you do, and as well as every soul in Lismoyle knows it, and I’ll trouble ye to answer one question—do ye mean to marry him?” She paused and gave the slight and shapely arm a compelling squeeze.
Francie wrenched her arm away. “No, I don’t!” she said, sitting up and facing Charlotte with eyes that had a dawning light of battle in them.
Charlotte pushed back her chair, and with the same action was on her feet.
“Oh, my God!” she bawled, flinging up both her arms with the fists clenched; “d’ye hear that? She dares to tell me that to me face after all I’ve done for her!” Her hands dropped down, and she stared at Francie with her thick lips working in a dumb transport of rage. “And who are ye waiting for? Will ye tell me that! You, that aren’t fit to lick the dirt off Christopher Dysart’s boots!” she went on, with the uncontrolled sound in her voice that told that rage was bringing her to the verge of tears; “for the Prince of Wales’ son, I suppose? Or are ye cherishing hopes that your friend Mr. Hawkins would condescend to take a fancy to you again?” She laughed repulsively, waiting with a heaving chest for the reply, and Francie felt as if the knife had been turned in the wound.
“Leave me alone! What is it to you who I marry?” she cried passionately; “I’ll marry who I like, and no thanks to you!”
“Oh, indeed,” said Charlotte, breathing hard and loud between the words; “it’s nothing to me, I suppose, that I’ve kept the roof over your head and put the bit into your mouth, while ye’re carrying on with every man that ye can get to look at ye!”