“I’ve let some of you folks put one over on me.” Mame fiercely brushed aside new tears.
It was not a moment for a smile. Yet it was hard to resist one at that whimsical and quaint defiance. Even in the hour of desolation the minx was like no one else. She had an odd power of attraction. It was by no means easy to dislike her. After all she had only acted in strict accordance with her nature.
“What is it? Tell me.”
Mame suddenly handed Celimene the letter she had written.
“You—you are sending back the ring?” There was a note in the voice of Bill’s sister which suggested that it feared to be other than incredulous. “You—you are breaking off the engagement?”
“I’ll say yes.”
Perhaps for the first time in their intercourse real emotion flooded the face of the more accomplished woman of the world. “Dear child!” she said softly. And then abruptly turning aside as the bleak face of Mame became more than she could bear, “You—you make one feel indescribably mean.”
It was perfectly true. She undoubtedly did, the little go-getter. Under all the surface crudity, which month by month was ceasing to be anything like as crude as it had been, was something big, vital, true.
Lady Violet was not given to self-depreciation. She knew her power of displacement only too well, even in the queer muss of a modern world. She might have been tempted to laugh at this rather pathetic thing; she might have played her off successfully against certain pretentious people, yet somehow the minx was riding off with all the honours. Mame already had taught her a pretty sharp lesson. It was one she would never forget. Lady Violet for the future would always remember that the player of unlawful games must keep an eye on the policeman. And now Mame was teaching her something else.
Seldom had this woman of the world found herself quite so much at a loss. Face to face with Mame’s heroism, for her self-sacrifice amounted to that, mere words became an impertinence. The thing to strike her about this good child when she set eyes on her first was the extraordinary grit that was in her; and it was that quality which spoke to her now.