"I know what you mean."
"Yes. You must tell me what's being said about me?"
"They say that he—that you——"
"Yes. Go on!"
"That you were Bryan Lumsden's mistress in France, and that he's spending money on bringing you out and paying for your dresses and lessons, and that he——" She hesitated.
"What? Is there more?"
"Yes. That—oh! that he wasn't the first. That when he—found you, you were posing as a model to some French artist."
"What a picturesque past I've got! And have you believed it all?"
Leslie made a despondent and penitent gesture.
"Not now I've seen you. Not now I've told you to your face. But you can't live in a house like Lulford all your life and not hear—things. Well, are you going to loathe me forever?"