Innocent looked at her gravely and steadily.
"Do you mean to say that you will own me?—name me?—acknowledge me as your daughter—"
"Why, certainly not!" and Lady Blythe's eyes flashed over her in cold disdain—"What are you thinking of? You are not legitimate—and you really have no lawful name—besides, I'm not bound to do anything at all for you now you are old enough to earn your own living. But I'm quite a good-natured woman,—and as I have said already I have no other children—and I'm willing to 'adopt' you, bring you out in society, give you pretty clothes, and marry you well if I can. But to own that I ever made such an idiot of myself as to have you at all is a little too much to ask!—Lord Blythe would never forgive me!"
"So you would make me live a life of deception with you!" said Innocent—"You would make me pretend to be what I am not—just as you pretend to be what you are not!—and yet you say I am your child! Oh God, save me from such a mother! Madam"—and she spoke in cold, deliberate accents—"you have lived all these years without children, save me whom you have ignored—and I, though nameless and illegitimate, now ignore you! I have no mother! I would not own you any more than you would own me;—my shame in saying that such a woman is my mother would be greater than yours in saying that I am your child! For the stigma of my birth is not my fault, but yours!—I am, as my father called me—'innocent'!"
Her breath came and went quickly—a crimson flush was on her cheeks—she looked transfigured—beautiful. Lady Blythe stared at her in wide-eyed disdain.
"You are exceedingly rude and stupid," she said—"You talk like a badly-trained actress! And you are quite blind to your own interests. Now please remember that if you refuse the offer I make you, I shall never trouble about you again—you will have to sink or swim—and you can do nothing for yourself—without even a name—"
"Have you never heard," interrupted Innocent, suddenly, "that it is quite possible to MAKE a name?"
Her "mother" was for the moment startled—she looked so intellectually strong and inspired.
"Have you never thought," she went on—"even you, in your strange life of hypocrisy—"
"Hypocrisy!" exclaimed Lady Blythe—"How dare you say such a thing!"