"People say you were seen—seen and recognized—by different people who knew you, in one or the other of those places."
"Travelling with Colonel Rannock, as his wife! My God! A man I refused three times. Three times," laughing hysterically. "Why, I have had him on his knees in this room; kneeling, Sue, like a lover in an old comedy; and I only laughed at him."
"That's rather a dangerous thing to do, Grace, with some men."
"Oh, Colonel Rannock is not the kind of man to start a vendetta for a woman's laughter. He is a laughing philosopher himself, and takes everything lightly."
"Does he? One never knows what there is behind that lightness. What if Colonel Rannock has set this scandal on foot with a view to proposing a fourth time, and getting himself accepted?"
"How could he make people swear they saw me—me!—at Algiers, when I was in Italy? It is all nonsense Sue; an absurd malentendu; my name substituted for some other woman's. Now I am in London, the matter will be put straight in an hour. People have only to see me again to be sure I am not that kind of woman. As for Colonel Rannock, he may be dissipated, and a spendthrift; but he is well-born, and he ought to be a gentleman."
"Who said he was ill-born? Surely, you know that there are good races and bad. Who can tell when the bad blood came in, and the character of the race began to degenerate? Under the Plantagenets, perhaps. Colonel Rannock comes of a bad race—everybody knows that. His grandfather, Lord Kirkmichael, was notorious in the Regency. He left his memoirs, don't you know, to be published fifty years after his death—an awful book—that had a succès de scandale six or seven years ago. He was bosom friend of Lord Hertford, and that set."
"I did not trouble myself about his grandfather."
"Ah! but you ought! A man's family history is the man. Lord Kirkmichael's grandson would be capable of anything infamous."
"The whole thing is too preposterous for consideration," Lady Perivale said angrily. "I wonder at your taking it tragically."