"Where did you get that idea from?" asked Mrs. Vandeleur, sharply.
"Well, I would rather not say who told me in so many words; but I have suspected the thing before," Clare went on, feeling her way, and wondering whether she was going to stumble on the truth. "Of course you know how people will talk, and this is the sort of thing they say—that it is quite too reckless of Mr. Armstrong, in his position, to offer marriage to a girl about whose antecedents he knows absolutely nothing at all. Why, even you know very little more, do you, auntie? And Lina is twenty, and has had to earn her living somehow since she was a child. And of course she is perfectly lovely, in that thin ethereal style that some people rave about. She is so oddly reticent, too, about her past—haven't you noticed it? But, now that she is going to make such a splendid and unexpected marriage with such an extremely charming man as Mr. Armstrong, no doubt it all comes back to her. She is very religious, you know, and very likely would rather give him up than be married under false pretences, poor girl!"
To the whole of this elaborate speech, evolved bit by bit from Clare's inner consciousness, Mrs. Vandeleur listened, with her brilliant hazel eyes peering intently through her glasses upon her niece's face. But as the girl finished, the little gray lady rose from her chair in her wrath, every fold of her soft brocade bristling with indignation.
"Do you venture to insinuate," she inquired in icily deliberate tones, "that my friend and companion and fellow-worker hesitates to become an honourable gentleman's wife because her past career has rendered her unworthy to fill that position?"
Clare was considerably taken aback; but she resolved to stick to her guns.
"I certainly meant that," she answered, feeling in her own heart that after all she had probably hit upon something very like the truth.
"Then, if these are your opinions—and they are, after all, only such as I should expect from you—let me tell you that you are not fit to take my white-souled Lina by the hand! I know every secret of her heart, and there is not one thought hidden there which would not shame you by its purity!"
"I would not disturb your belief in Lina for the world," observed her niece, a little red spot of anger forming itself in the whiteness of her cheeks; "but, on a subject like this, we may each keep our own opinion, may we not? I myself am very fond of Lina."
"That is not true! You hate her, and are bitterly envious of her!"
"I! Envious of her!"