The two exclamations betrayed how intent her listeners were, and how full of horror the suggestion. There was even incredulity in the tones, an initiative protest against such possibilities. But the Marquise looked from one to the other with unruffled earnestness.
“So it was told to me,” she continued; “these accomplishments 22 meant extra thousands to the man who sold her, and the man was her father’s brother.”
“No, no, no!” and Mrs. McVeigh shook her head decidedly to emphasize her conviction. “I cannot believe that at the present day in our country such an arrangement could exist. No one, knowing our men, could credit such a story. In the past century such abuses might have existed, but surely not now––in all my life I have heard of nothing like that.”
“Probably the girl was romancing,” agreed the Marquise, with a shrug, “for you would no doubt be aware if such a state of affairs had existence.”
“Certainly.”
“Then your men are not so clever as ours,” laughed the Countess; “for they manage many little affairs their own women never suspect.”
Mrs. McVeigh looked displeased. To her it was not a matter of cleverness, but of principle and morality; and in her mind there was absolutely no comparison possible without jarring decidedly on the prejudices of her Gallic friends, so she let the remark pass without comment.
“Yes,” said the Marquise, rising, “when I heard the story of the girl Rhoda I fancied it one the white mistresses of America seldom heard.”
“Rhoda?”
“Yes, that was the name the girl was known by in the school––Rhoda Larue––the Larue was a fiction; slaves, I am told, having no legal right to names.”