Mrs. Lockyard laughed again, not very pleasantly.
"And left poor Maurice in the lurch. That was rather cruel of you after all his chivalrous efforts to deliver you from bondage. And he so hard up, too."
A flush of anger rose in the girl's face. She tilted her chin with the old proud gesture.
"I should not have married him in any case," she said. "He made that quite impossible by his own act. He—was not so chivalrous as I thought."
A gleam of malice shone for a moment in Mrs. Lockyard's eyes, and just a hint of it was perceptible in her voice as she made response.
"One has to make allowances sometimes. All men are not made after the pattern of your chosen lord and master. He, I grant you, is hard as granite and about as impassive. Still I mustn't depreciate your prize since it was of your own choosing. Let me wish you instead every happiness."
"He was not impassive that night," said Doris quickly, with a sharp inward sense of injustice.
"No?" questioned Mrs. Lockyard.
"No. At least—Major Brandon did not find him so." Doris's blue eyes took fire at the recollection. "He gave him his deserts," she said, with a certain exultation. "He thrashed him."