412“Charlie Hunt, of course. Scamp! Worm! Cockroach! Low down, ungrateful, pop-eyed pig!” Nor did the reviling stop there. For the space of about forty seconds Aurora was unpublishable.
“But how on earth did he get at it?” wondered Estelle.
“After he’d opened that letter of mine, he wrote to the amiable writer thereof and asked for information.”
“Honestly, Nell, I don’t think he’s had time.”
“I guess he has–just time. The languishing Iona hurried for once. Well, I don’t care!” Aurora folded the paper tight and flung it from her. “Enemies may do what they please; I’ve got friends. If everything comes out as it really happened, I haven’t anything to fear, except that it’s mighty unpleasant. It’s only lies, and people believing them, that could do me harm. I’ve got friends in Florence. Oh, not many true ones, I don’t suppose. It’s paying my way that has made me popular, I’m not such a gump as not to know that. But some true friends I’ve got, and their backing will be my stay. One friend I’ve got–” Pride and a sudden battle-light flashed in Aurora’s eye. “One friend I’ve got, who if I gave the word would kill Charlie Hunt for this, or put him in a fair way to dying. I do believe, Hat, that Gerald Fane would call Charlie Hunt out to fight a duel to punish him for a slur on me. Oh, he can fence just as well as the Italians he was brought up with. I’ve seen the fencing-swords in his studio. But”–she calmed down–“I wouldn’t permit that sort of thing. It’s ridiculous. I don’t believe in it.”
Cooling to normal, she laughed, with a return to the light of reality. “He doesn’t believe in it, either, I shouldn’t suppose.”
413CHAPTER XXII
Leslie, arriving early next day, read off the newspaper article, making a free translation of it, as follows: