"Surely," said Clair, a little haughtily, "you do not allude to the silly flirtation, which I have quite sufficiently repented, as my manners may have already expressed."
"You double dealing wretch," exclaimed Lucy, in a perfect rage at the superiority he assumed, "you oily-tongued hypocrite, how dare you talk to me in this way? Why, I heard you talking to Mr. Ware, when you little thought I was walking in the nut-avenue. You despised me, did you, in your vaunted goodness—and, because you are fickle enough to turn from one girl to another, you try to justify your behaviour, by abusing me to one too good to listen to such stuff about either of us. What do you say to me now?" she said, her eyes dancing with delighted passion at seeing him utterly confounded. "Now carry your sanctimonious looks elsewhere, for they will not take with me, I can tell you. I could have forgiven your flirting, because they say—'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind;' but, bad as I am, I never abused a man that had been silly enough to admire me—nor did I ever set myself up as anything better than I am. I am glad you feel what I say, and now go to the noble-hearted Mabel, and say, 'Here I am—I have been flirting, before your very eyes, with a girl I despised; but she served to make a few weeks pass more pleasantly than they might otherwise have done. I have been sporting with her feelings instead of making honest court to you.' And then, flushed with the success, purchased by such hypocrisy, tell her, that you have come to lay your laurels and a deceitful heart at her feet, and that you think them just offerings to her purity, and an ample return for the cruelty you were led to commit, by my persuasion. It will be safest to lay all the blame on me, to her, as well as to Mr. Ware. It told with him, and it may with her—go and try."
She here stopped for want of breath, but, as Clair made no reply, she quickly resumed.
"You have not a word to answer me, have you now? How very pretty you look, standing abashed before the girl you despised. If I were a man you might run your sword through me, for want of a better argument in your favor, but, as it is, I am afraid there is nothing to be done," she continued, (as her companion threw himself into an arm chair and seemed determined to let her say her worst, without the slightest attempt at interruption,) then walking to the window she began singing part of the Spanish girl's song to her Irish lover.
"'They say that the spirit most gallant in war
Is always the truest in love.'"
"For Mrs. Lesly's sake do not make so much noise," said Clair.
"Unfortunately," replied Lucy, "I am not so unfeeling, for Mrs. Lesly's room is at the other end of the house. You said, if I remember rightly, that my character was too feathery to suit you—nevertheless, I think for a feather my strokes are rather hard. Have you nothing to say for yourself?"
"Yes, when you have blamed me as much as you may think I deserve, I will venture to reply."
"Oh, say on, I have done."