“It does matter very much. This is not a fit house for a young girl while you live in it.”
And turning to Mabin, she said with a sudden burst of vindictive feeling: “Go home at once to your proper guardians. The woman you are now with is a——”
Before she could utter the word which was ready to her lips, Mrs. Dale interrupted her. Springing between the other two women with a low cry, she addressed the elder lady with such a torrent of passion that both Mabin and the visitor could only listen without an attempt to stop her.
“You shall not say it! You shall not tell her?! You know that she was safe with me, as if she had been in her own home. You have spoilt her happiness with me, because you knew it made me happy. But you shall not contaminate her with your wicked words. Go, child.” She seized Mabin by the arm, and ran with her to the outer door of the dining-room. “Run away. I will find you when this woman is gone.”
And the next moment Mabin found herself in the hall, with the dining-room door closed.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. BANKS.
There was silence in the room for a few minutes after the abrupt dismissal of Mabin. Mrs. Dale made a perfunctory gesture of invitation to her unwelcome visitor to be seated, and threw herself into a hard horsehair-covered armchair by the window, which she carefully closed.
The visitor, however, remained standing. She was evidently rather astonished at the high-handed behavior of the culprit whom she had come to examine, and uncertain how to deal with her. At last she said in a very cutting tone:
“I suppose I ought not by this time to be surprised at your behaving in an unbecoming manner to me, or to anybody. But as you pretended to profess some penitence for your awful sin on the last occasion of our meeting, I own I was carried away by my indignation when I found you receiving visitors, and young girl visitors. Surely you must recognize how improper such conduct is?”
“And which do you suppose is the more likely to do her harm? To stay with me knowing nothing, or to hear from your lips the awful thing you were going to tell her? Why, the poor child would never have got over the shock!”