“I do not understand you,” exclaimed Marie.
“Bah! That you do, and I know it. I am not so mad as to believe in your smooth ways and sham fondness for that old man.”
“Clotilde, I will not sit and listen to you,” cried Marie. “Your words are disgraceful.”
“Better speak plain than be smug and smooth and secretive, you handsome hypocrite! There, it won’t do, Rie. You may as well drop the veil before me. All this wonderful show of modesty and mock devotion is thrown away.”
“Are you going out of your senses?” said Marie hoarsely.
“Half-way,” was the reply. “It is enough to madden any woman, to be sold as I was.”
“You accepted Mr Elbraham of your own free will,” said Marie indignantly, “and it is your duty to remember that you are his wife.”
“Is it?” cried Clotilde angrily, and speaking as if she were fanning her temper to raging point. “I know what my duty is to my slave-owner better than you can tell me, madam; but, clever as you are, you did not keep out of the marriage mess.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” cried Clotilde, who was excited with the wine she had drunk, and her desire to sting her sister to the quick. “Why, you did not suppose I was going to sell myself for a position and let you hang back and marry the man I loved.”