"My dear fellow, you must be making a mistake."
"I'm making no mistake," returned Guy doggedly. "Aunt Jelly says it is common talk. Have you heard anything about it?"
"You know I never pay attention to gossip," said Gartney evasively, "I don't even listen to it, but you may be certain that anyone who poses as the cher ami of Mrs. Veilsturm won't escape calumny."
"I don't pose as the cher ami of Mrs. Veilsturm," said Errington fiercely. "I don't care two straws about her."
"Actions speak louder than words. You certainly have acted as if you did."
"Good Heavens, Eustace, you surely don't believe all these lies?" retorted Guy wrathfully, rising from his chair.
"I never said I did," answered his cousin coolly, "but I'm looking at it now from the world's point of view. Mrs. Veilsturm has certainly made a dead set at you, and you, thinking it was natural amiability, have played into her hands. You, no doubt, call it friendship, but the world doesn't."
"It is friendship. Indeed, hardly that as far as I am concerned, as I don't care if I never saw Mrs. Veilsturm again. She has taken an unaccountable fancy to me, and I'm no Joseph where a pretty woman is concerned, but as for leaving my dear wife for a meretricious woman like that--Good God!"
"Well, let the world talk as it likes, so long as it isn't speaking the truth," said Eustace impatiently. "Who cares? If you expect justice from your fellow creatures, you won't get it. As to Aunt Jelly, old women are privileged gossips. It don't matter to you."
"But it does matter to me, I tell you," cried Guy violently, walking to and fro, "she has written all about these lies to my wife."