Pamela came over and sat down on the arm of her mother’s chair. “Now, mamma,” she said putting her arm round Lady Dysart’s crape-clad shoulder, “you can’t deny that she knew all about the Dublin clergy and went to Sunday-school regularly for ten years, and she guessed two lights of an acrostic for you.”
“Yes, two that happened to be slangy! No, my dear child, I admit that she is very pretty, but, as I said before, she has proved herself to be nothing but an adventuress. Everyone in the country has said the same thing.”
“I can scarcely imagine anyone less like an adventuress,” said Christopher, with the determined quietness by which he sometimes mastered his stammer.
His mother looked at him with the most unaffected surprise. “And I can scarcely imagine anyone who knows less about the matter than you!” she retorted. “Oh, my dear boy, don’t smoke another of those horrid things,” as Christopher got up abruptly and began to fumble rather aimlessly in a cigarette-box on the chimney-piece, “I’m sure you’ve smoked more than is good for you. You look quite white already.”
He made no reply, and his mother’s thoughts reverted to the subject under discussion. Suddenly a little cloud of memory began to appear on her mental horizon. Now that she came to think of it, had not Kate Gascogne once mentioned Christopher’s name to her in preposterous connection with that of the present Mrs. Lambert?
“Let me tell you!” she exclaimed, her deep-set eyes glowing with the triumphant effort of memory, “that people said she did her utmost to capture you! and I can very well believe it of her; a grievous waste of ammunition on her part, wasn’t it, Pamela? Though it did not result in an engagement!” she added, highly pleased at being able to press a pun into her argument.
“Oh, I think she spared Christopher,” struck in Pamela with a conciliatory laugh; “‘Poor is the conquest of the timid hare,’ you know!” She was aware of something portentously rigid in her brother’s attitude, and would have given much to have changed the conversation, but the situation was beyond her control.
“I don’t think she would have thought it such a poor conquest,” said Lady Dysart indignantly; “a girl like that, accustomed to attorneys’ clerks and commercial travellers—she’d have done anything short of suicide for such a chance!”
Christopher had stood silent during this discussion. He was losing his temper, but he was doing it after his fashion, slowly and almost imperceptibly. The pity for Mr. Lambert’s wife, that had been a primary result of Charlotte’s indictment, flamed up into quixotism, and every word his mother said was making him more hotly faithful to the time when his conquest had been complete.
“I daresay it will surprise you to hear that I gave her the chance, and she didn’t take it,” he said suddenly.