“So do I,” he replied pompously, staring at her with hard eyes; “a man must do his duty, like a Spartan, to his king, his conscience, and his party. There are examples enough in the history of Greece and of Rome, lofty—”
“Nonsense!” cried Lady Betty vigorously, “to the wind with your examples. Give me a noble heart, a Christian life, a brotherly love, a willingness to live and die for high purposes. Poor Lady Fraunces!”
“Oh, never you mind, my dear,” put in old Lady Dacres, with a titter, “she’ll get over it. Grief doesn’t kill; her mother had three husbands and—” she whispered a scandal behind her fan to Lady Sunderland, who was so overcome with her wit that she rocked with laughter, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“Your sympathy is quite absurd,” said Spencer, looking straight into Betty’s eyes. “Sir Thomas did his duty. I would have sent a traitor brother-in-law to the block, madam, quite as cheerfully.”
“And your sister also, I presume,” she replied, courtesying profoundly; “from my heart I thank you, my lord.”
“Oh, la, Betty, drink your chocolate and don’t be a fool,” said her mother petulantly.
Betty smiled sweetly.
“I thank you,” she said, “I have quite finished it. I will send some more to my Lord Spencer,” and she walked out of the room with her head in the air.
Half way across the hall she met a servant, the Irishman Denis. He stopped her with a bow, one hand on his heart and an air of great secrecy and gallantry, and he handed her a letter. She took it as silently, and when she reached her own door she hid it in her bosom for she knew that Alice Lynn was there. The girl had been folding up her ladyship’s finery and looked up at her entrance.
“Everything is ready now, my lady,” she said, “and if it pleases you, I will go into town a little way to buy that ribbon for you.”