“It is said, then, that you are her favored lover, with no intention of becoming her husband,” coldly and curtly answered the lady.
“Heaven of Heavens!” exclaimed the young man, starting up and striding across the room in his excitement, “was ever such an infamous calumny!—Your author, Madam! I demand to know your author!” he at length said, standing before her, pale with fury.
“I said common rumor,” quietly replied Mrs. Irving.
“No, but that will not do! Common rumor is an irresponsible thing. I must have your author—one who can be called to account, and made to swallow the calumny, though it should choke the calumniator.”
“Then, sir, I fear you will have to call my whole school, with its patrons behind it, to account. For this rumor came in with the pupils who returned to the school after the Christmas holidays. They heard it at their homes, or in the social circles of the city where it was spoken of. Of course, when this report came to the knowledge of the teachers, they severely rebuked their pupils for such sort of conversation. I know nothing of the truth or falsehood of this report; it is quite enough that such exists to banish its subject, guilty or innocent, from young ladies’ society.”
Alexander resumed his hurried walk to and fro in the room in much distress of mind. Then, pausing once more before the lady, he said:
“Madam, I am wounded to the quick by these cruel and fatal slanders. But would it not have been more womanly, more Christian in you to have defended the good name of that innocent girl and friendless orphan?—Friendless, but for my friendship, which seems to have been her bane.”
“Sir, you must please to remember that my position as the principal of a young ladies’ academy is a peculiar one. Had I even known your ward to be blameless, I could not, in the face of such reports, have received her without breaking up my school. Every pupil would have been removed by her friends, nor could I have blamed them. I regret to have pained you; but please also to remember that you brought this pain upon yourself by insisting on an explanation.”
“And I was right! And I will drag the foul slander farther into the light. Some one originated it, and I will make it my first business to discover and punish the originator. Good morning, Madam.”
And with a very ceremonious bow Alexander Lyon left the room.