“No, it wasn’t. I wanted Coral, or Coralie, miss.”
“And I preferred Cora,” said the younger lady with languid hauteur, as if she were practising a part, “and you are always blurting out Betsy.”
“Blurting! There’s a way to speak to your poor mother, who has made the lady of you that you are. Carriages and diamonds, and grand dinners, and—”
“The smell of the orange peel, and the candles, and the memory of the theatre tacked on to me. ‘Actress!’ you can see every fine madam we pass say with her eyes, as she draws her skirt aside and turns from me as if I polluted the cliff. I’ve a deal to be proud of,” cried the younger woman fiercely. “For heaven’s sake, hold your tongue!”
“Don’t go on like that, Betsy—Cora, I mean, my dear. Let ’em sneer. If your poor, dear, dead father did keep a show—well, there, don’t bite me, Bet—Cora—theatre, and make his money, it’s nothing to them, and you’ll make a marriage yet, as’ll surprise some of ’em if you plays your cards proper!”
“Mother!”
“Say mamma, my dear, now; and do smooth down, my beauty. There, there, there! I didn’t mean to upset you. There’s Lord Carboro’ coming. Don’t let him see we’ve been quarrelling again. I don’t know, though,” she added softly, as she noticed her child’s heightened colour and heaving bosom; “it do make you look so ’andsome, my dear.”
“Pish!”
“It do, really. What a beauty you are, Cora. I don’t wonder at the fools going mad after you and toasting you—as may be a countess if you like.”
“Turn down here,” said Cora abruptly. “I don’t want to see Carboro’.”