I was indignant at the heartlessness of his cynicism, and so the answer that leaped to my lips was out before I had time to reflect upon its unladylikeness.
"Ay," said I, "and each time you have cried in your soul, like Martha, 'Behold, he stinketh.'"
My cousin laughed aloud.
"You have a sharp tongue," he said, "take care you are not cut with it yourself some day."
Just then the footmen who had been unpacking Tanty's trunks from the first carriage laid a great wooden box upon the porch, and one of them asked Rupert which room they should bring it to.
Rupert looked at it strangely, and then at me.
"Take it where you will," he exclaimed at last. "There lies good money-value wasted—though, after all, one never knows."
"What is it?" said I, struck by a sinister meaning in his accents.
"Mourning, beautiful Molly—mourning for you—crape—gowns—weepers—wherewith to have dried your sister's tears—but not needed yet, you see."
He bared his teeth at me over his shoulder—I could not call it a smile—and then paused, as he was about to brush past into the hall, to give me the pas, with a mocking bow.