“Oh, look at dolly, look, look!” cried Martha reproachfully. Hadria seized its legs and pulled it back again, murmuring some consolatory promise to its mistress.
“It is strange how you succeed in putting me on the defensive, Henriette—I who have been wronged. A horrible wrong it is too. It has ruined my life. You will never know all that it implies, never, never, though I talk till Doomsday. Nobody will—except Professor Fortescue.”
Henriette gave a horrified gesture. “I believe you are in love with that man. That is the cause of all this wild conduct.”
Miss Temperley had lost self-control for a moment.
Hadria looked at her steadily.
“I beg your pardon. I spoke in haste, Hadria. You have your faults, but Hubert has nothing to fear from you in that respect, I am sure.”
“Really?” Hadria had come forward and was standing with her left elbow on the mantel-piece, the doll still tucked under her right arm. “And you think that I would, at all hazards, respect a legal tie which no feeling consecrates?”
“I do you that justice,” murmured Henriette, turning very white.
“You think that I should regard myself as so completely the property of a man whom I do not love, and who actively dislikes me, as to hold my very feelings in trust for him. Disabuse yourself of that idea, Henriette. I claim rights over myself, and I will hold myself in pawn for no man. This is no news either to you or to Hubert. Why pretend that it is?”
Henriette covered her face with her hands.