“You dislike Lady Wentworth very definitely, I see,” he said, and there was a query in the words.
“I would rather not discuss her,” Valentine answered, and to end the conversation he took up the evening paper that had just been brought up from the station.
But Sacha, apparently, was in a talkative mood.
“Does it ever strike you, Val, that you are a prejudiced person? Take this case of Lady Wentworth, for instance. What had this girl done that should have set you so desperately against her? Of course, there is open enmity between you now. I don’t see how you could expect anything else under the circumstances; but what I don’t understand is, why you should have worked to bring this enmity into existence.”
“I hardly think you would be nearer comprehension if I were to enlarge upon the reasons that have actuated my attitude where Lady Wentworth is concerned,” Valentine said, dryly.
Sacha shrugged his shoulders again.
“As I said just now, I repeat you are a very prejudiced person, Val.”
Valentine felt his temper rising.
“Look here, Sacha, let us drop this discussion. My opinion about Lady Wentworth is a matter that concerns myself. If it had concerned you, I take it, you would not have acted as you are acting. But that again is a matter that is your own affair entirely. I prefer, myself, not to speak any further about the establishment at Sunstead, and I regret that I introduced Mark’s name at all.”
“Lady Wentworth,” said Sacha, slowly, “has gone over the whole subject with me. She had charged me to explain to Grace that she had no kind of animosity against our sister, that her cause of complaint is with you entirely.”