“Your independent spirit ill becomes you. Where could you go? Who would take you, a penniless beggar, and give you the advantages which you have been enjoying during the past year? But it is folly for me to give heed to your idle words. I command you to return directly to your room, and hold no intercourse with any one, and to-morrow I will decide what course to pursue with reference to your future.”
She had been planning to pack her off to Brooklyn with one of the servants until Lord Carrol’s visit should be ended, and thus avoid all possibility of an interview and its attendant explanations.
But Star did not move. She remained standing quietly by Mr. Rosevelt’s chair, as if she had not heard her command.
“Did you hear what I said?” she demanded, sharply.
“Yes, madam.”
“Well, do you intend to obey me?”
“No, madam.”
“What!”
“I refuse to recognize your authority over me from this moment. I refuse to obey any longer one who, from the first, has been governed only by feelings of personal spite in all her dealings with me,” Star returned, firmly.
Mrs. Richards could scarcely credit her ears.