“‘Good,’ in sweet sooth!—as though it should be ill for her to wear a coronet on her head, and carry her pocket brimful of ducats! Where be your eyes, Sir Thomas?”
“Thine be dazed, methinks, with the ducats and the coronet, Sister,” put in Rachel.
“Well, have your way,” said Lady Enville, spreading out her hands, as if she were letting Blanche’s good fortune drop from them: “have your way! You will have it, I count, as whatso I may say. I pray God the poor child be not heart-broken. Howbeit, I had better loved her than to do thus.”
Sir Thomas was silent, not because he did not feel the taunt, but because he did feel it too bitterly to trust himself with speech. But Rachel rose from her chair, deeply stung, and spoke very plain words indeed.
“Orige Enville,” she said, “thou art a born fool!”
“Gramercy, Rachel!” ejaculated her sister-in-law, as much moved out of her graceful ease of manner as it lay in her torpid nature to be.
“You can deal with the maid betwixt you two,” pursued the spinster. “I will not bear a hand in the child’s undoing.”
And she marched out of the room, and slammed the door behind her.
“Good lack!” was Lady Enville’s comment.
Without resuming the subject, Sir Thomas walked to the other door and opened it.