“I decline to answer any questions upon the subject,” she returned, quietly.
“I command you to tell me.”
“And I still decline,” Star said, with an air that surprised both of her listeners.
She was as colorless now as a block of marble, but so beautiful in her proud sorrow, her agonized scorn, that they could but regard her with wonder.
“You have no right to refuse what I ask of you. I am your guardian, and I demand a truthful confession of this whole scandalous affair,” Mrs. Richards reiterated, sharply.
“You have already had it, you say, from Lord Carrol’s own lips; it will therefore be unnecessary for me to repeat or enlarge upon it,” the young girl returned, with calm scorn, while her delicate nostrils dilated, and her sweet lips curled with supreme contempt.
“I cannot understand—there must be some mistake in all this,” ejaculated Mr. Rosevelt, his face a perfect blank. “I thought, Saturday, Star, that you——”
A slight motion from her checked him in what he was going to say.
“No, there is no mistake; and this much I will explain to you. I did meet Lord Carrol to-night, as Mrs. Richards has told you,” she said. “I did believe myself his betrothed wife, and him to be a man of honor, until he came here last night as Miss Richards’ acknowledged suitor, and when I saw him this evening I did denounce him as a traitor. It seems that he has volunteered explanations to suit himself to Mr. and Mrs. Richards, and I decline to go further into particulars with them. I have no desire to blight Miss Josephine’s prospects in life, and I wish her all joy with her high-born and honorable lover.”
Pen cannot portray the scorn which pervaded those last words, ringing out so clearly, so scathingly that Mrs. Richards’ cheeks burned and her ears tingled; for this was the man—if he really had been the traitor which she wished to make him appear—whom she was using all her arts to secure for Josephine’s husband.