"Do you know this for a fact, Mrs. Champney?" She turned upon her sharply. She was, at last, at bay; her eyes were dark with anger; her lips and cheeks white.
"It's like you to fly off at a tangent, Aileen, and doubt a person's word simply because it happens to contain an unpleasant truth for you—here is the proof," she held up a letter; "it's from my cousin, Henry Van Ostend; he has written it out in black and white that my nephew has already asked for his daughter's hand. Now disabuse your mind of any notion you may have in regard to Champney Googe—I hope you won't disgrace yourself by crying for the moon after this."
The girl's eyes fairly blazed upon her.
"Mrs. Champney, after this I'll thank you to keep your advice and your family affairs to yourself—I didn't ask for either. And you've no need to tell me I'm only Aileen Armagh—for I know it perfectly well. I'm only an orphan you took into your home seven years ago and have kept, so far, for her service. But if I am only this, I am old enough to do and act as I please—and now you may mark my words: it's not I who will disgrace you and yours—not I, remember that!" Her anger threatened to choke her; but her voice although husky remained low, never rising above its level inflection. "And let me tell you another thing: I'm as good any day as Alice Van Ostend, and I should despise myself if I thought myself less; and if it's the millions that make the difference in the number of your friends—may God keep me poor till I die!" She spoke with passionate earnestness.
Mrs. Champney smiled to herself; she felt her purpose was accomplished.
"Are you going up to Mrs. Caukins'?" she asked in a matter-of-fact voice that struck like cold iron on the girl's burning intensity of feeling.
"Yes, I'm going."
"Well, be back by seven."
The girl made no reply. She left the library at once, closing the door behind her with a force that made the hall ring. Mrs. Champney smiled again, and proceeded to re-read Alice Van Ostend's letter.
Aileen went out through the kitchen and across the vegetable garden to the boat house. She cast loose one of the boats in the float, took her seat and rowed out into the lake—rowed with a strength and swiftness that accurately gauged her condition of mind. She rounded the peninsula of The Bow and headed her boat, not to the sheds on the north shore, but towards the west, to "lily-pad reach". To get away from that woman's presence, to be alone with herself—that was all she craved at the moment. The oars caught among the lily-pads; this gave her an excuse for pulling and wrenching at them. Her anger was still at white heat—not a particle of color as yet tinged her cheeks—and the physical exertion necessary to overcome such an obstacle as the long tough stems she felt to be a relief.