“Stop, Laurence—it isn’t true, it isn’t true! It was Mr. Cole who gathered flowers and fruit for me, and who looked at the fish with me—not Mr. Carruthers at all. And it was Mr. Standing whose accompaniments I played and who talked about poetry with me, not—”
“Mr. Standing? He’s another beauty! You choose your friends well, Miss Christie. I feel I am not worthy to be admitted among the number. I am too dull.”
“You are too rude,” said I, my spirit rising. “I don’t know what you mean by calling them ‘beauties;’ but none of the gentlemen you sneer at would have thought of insulting me and trying to make me unhappy, just because I sometimes talked to other people.”
“No, you tried to be impartial, I see,” he sneered again. “But I don’t think you succeeded. You were not on the river between twelve and two o’clock in the morning with all the men-visitors at Denham Court, were you?”
“No,” said I; then, stung to the quick by his sneers—“I wasn’t at Denham Court long enough.”
“Oh!” said Laurence, more angrily than ever. He was so angry that he began to speak again two or three times, but only stammered and broke off. At last he said, “You—you were not there long; but you—you made good use of your time; for by this morning the fame of your exploits had spread all over the neighborhood.”
“My exploits!”
“Yes. This morning, before you arrived, Mr. Rayner had heard of them.”
“Mr. Rayner! Oh, that is not surprising!”
Laurence turned upon me sharply.