There was a silence in the room. Rosamund had found it difficult to tell this base and ignoble piece of scandal to her sister. Now she did not look at June because she loved her too much to witness the shame and pain that she knew would be hers.
“It’s too horrible,” she continued, June uttering no sound. “I wouldn’t have told you, but—well, we don’t want him coming here if he’s that sort of man. And Mrs. Newbury—” she made a gesture of angry disgust—“what right had she to come here and call on us?”
June still said nothing. Her hand was lying on the counterpane and Rosamund, placing hers on it, felt that it trembled and was cold. This, with the continued silence, alarmed her and she said, trying to palliate the blow,
“It seems so hard to believe it. He was so kind and natural and jolly up at Foleys, as if he was our brother.”
“Believe it!” exclaimed June loudly. “You don’t suppose I believe it?”
Her tone was high, almost violent. She jerked away her hand and drew herself up in the bed in a sitting posture.
“You don’t suppose I’d believe a shameful, wicked story like that, Rosamund Allen?”
“But they all said so,” stammered Rosamund, taken aback, almost converted by the conviction opposing her.
“Well, then, they say what’s not true, that’s all! They’re liars. Don’t lots of people tell lies? Haven’t you found out that down here in the city most of the things you hear aren’t true? They just like to spread stories like that so that people will listen to them. Everybody wants to talk here and nobody wants to listen. It’s a lie—just a mean, cowardly lie.”
Her face was burning and bore an expression of quivering intensity. Rosamund, astonished by her vehemence, stared at her disquieted.