"Thank God. Then I don't care for anything else. You are a true girl, Beatrice, you have truth in your eyes. Thank God, you are faithful. My son will have won a faithful wife."
"I trust he will—I think he will. But—"
"You need not be over modest, child. I know you. I see into your soul. We women of the world, we deep schemers, we who have dallied with the blackness of lies, can see farther than another into the deep, pure well of truth. I don't flatter you, Beatrice, but I know you are true."
"I am true, true to your son, and to you. But Mrs. Bertram, don't interrupt me. In being true, I must give you pain."
Again Mrs. Bertram's dark brows drew together until they almost met. Her heart beat fast.
"I am not very strong," she said, in a sort of suffocating voice. "You are concealing something; tell it to me at once."
"I will. Can you manage not to speak for a moment or two?"
"Go on, child. Can I manage? What have I not managed in the course of my dark life? Go on. Whatever you tell me will be a pin-prick, and I have had swords in my heart."
"I am sorry," began Beatrice.
"Don't—do you suppose I care for a girl's sorrow! The sorrow of an uncomprehending child? Speak."