The beautiful eyes met the fiery orbs before her with brave frankness.
"Mr. Kenyon called me; he had something to tell me, he said," she returned, quietly, "and I could not refuse to see him. I have not seen him before since the accident."
"And I will take care that you shall not see him again!" hissed the woman, fiercely. "Such conduct is terrible! It is positively shocking for an unmarried woman—a mere girl—to enter a man's sick-room!"
The girl's eyes flashed ominously.
"If it is improper for me, Mrs. Lynne," she returned coldly, "it must be the same for Serena. She is not married, although she is rather an old girl," she added, naïvely.
"You wretch!"
Mrs. Lynne was almost speechless with wrath.
"How dare you?" she hissed, bringing her hand down upon the girl's shrinking shoulder with savage emphasis—"how dare you call Serena old?"
"She is nearly twenty-seven," returned Beatrix, coolly. "Not old, to be sure, but certainly old enough to know how to behave herself. I think that—"