“Enough, mother!” ejaculated Laura, her beauteous countenance becoming scarlet with rage. “I will hear no more—for I understand your menace. But now listen to me! You fancy that I am in your power:—you think that if you seek my husband and reveal to him all the particulars of my past life—my amours—my profligacy,—you flatter yourself, I say, that his love will turn to hatred, and that he will discard me! Now, I dare you to do your worst—I fear you not! In the first place, you shall not see my husband again: in the second, you could succeed in working no change in his sentiments towards me. I would give you the lie to every word you uttered! He knows that I am not a goddess of purity: but I should have little difficulty in persuading him that you are magnifying a comparatively venial frailty into a monstrous dissoluteness. And now, mother, you may leave me as speedily as you choose—and spare me the pain of thrusting you from my doors by main force.”
Sublime and grand in the majesty of her beauty was the voluptuous—wanton—unprincipled Perdita,—(for on this occasion we must give her the name which so admirably represents her character),—as, drawn up to her full height, and with heaving bosom, flashing eyes, and expanding nostrils, she thus addressed her mother. Having laid aside her bonnet, shawl, and long white gloves, she seemed like a Pythoness in her bridal garments; and her manner was as energetic and awe-inspiring, as her voice was emphatic and determined in its full silver tones.
But the old woman lost not her composure: on the contrary, she listened to her daughter with the calm insolence of one possessing a last argument the enunciation of which would crush and overwhelm.
“One word, Laura,” she said, in a voice that commanded the young lady’s attention: “one word—and then act as you choose. If I ere now adopted a tone of menace, it was not with the intention of wielding such paltry and poor weapons as those to which you have alluded. I had not then, and have not now, the slightest intention of venting my spite in petty tittle-tattle relative to your amours: I will not afford you the chance,” she added, with keen sarcasm, “of using your sophistry for the purpose of colouring your dissoluteness so as to give it the air of a mere feminine frailty.”
“Cease this long preface, and come to the point at once,” said Laura, a vague fear coming over her, but which she concealed beneath a cold and rigid expression of countenance: at the same time, she saw full well that her mother was really possessed of some secret power whereof she was determined to make the most.
“My preface is done,” continued Mrs. Mortimer; “and now for the matter to which it was to lead. You have this day married the Count of Carignano?”
“You need scarcely ask that question,” said Laura; “since you have ere now accompanied us from the church where the ceremony was performed.”
“And you will henceforth style yourself Countess of Carignano?” proceeded the old woman, still adopting an interrogatory style.
“Certainly,” responded Laura: “I shall use the title to which marriage has given me a right. But to what point, may I once more ask, is all this long discourse to come?”
“To this,” answered the old woman, approaching her daughter and sinking her voice to a low whisper: “to this,” she repeated, her countenance becoming stern and resolute, while she abruptly stamped her foot imperiously upon the carpet: “to this, Laura—that your marriage of to-day is no marriage at all—that you consequently have no more right than I to the title of Countess—and that you have drawn down upon your head the peril of a prosecution for bigamy!”