"What an idiot I have been!" soliloquized she. "And what a cat that Damereau is!"
The above pretty speech—not at all suitable for pretty lips—was given vent to by Selina on her return from that morning visit to her milliner, when the latter had wholly refused to listen to reason, and both had lost their courtesy.
Her dainty bonnet tossed on the bed, her little black lace mantle on the back of her low dressing-chair, Selina, who had come straight home, swayed herself backwards and forwards in the said chair, as she mentally ran over the items of the keen words just exchanged between herself and madame, and wondered what in the world she was to do.
"If I had only kept my temper!" she thought, in self-reproach. "It was always a fault of mine to be quick and fiery—like poor Robert. Nothing but that made her so angry. What on earth would become of me if she should do as she says—send the account to Oscar?"
Selina started up at the thought. Calmly equable to a rather remarkable degree in general, she was one of the most restless of human beings when she did give way to excitement. Just as Robert had been.
"If he had but lived!" she cried, tears filling her eyes as her thoughts reverted to her brother, "I'd have taken this trouble to him and he would have settled it. Robert was generous!"
But Selina quite forgot to recall the fact that her brother's income, at the best, would not have been larger than her husband's was. Not quite as large, indeed, for Oscar had his own small patrimony of six or seven hundred a-year in addition. Just now she could not be expected to remember common sense.
The Dalrymples had a distant cousin, a merchant, or cotton-broker, or something of the kind, residing in Liverpool, who was supposed to be fabulously rich. He had quarrelled with the family long ago, and was looked upon as no better than an ill-natured, growling bear. An idea had come into Selina's brain lately—what if she wrote to tell him her position and beg a little money from his rich coffers to set her straight? It came to her again now, as she sat there. But, no that ungenial man was known to hold unseemly debt and extravagance of all kinds in especial abhorrence. He would only write her a condemnatory answer; perhaps even re-enclose her begging letter to Oscar! Selina started from the thought, and put away for ever all notion of aid from Benjamin Dalrymple.
"How is this woman to be pacified?" she resumed, her reflections reverting to Madame Damereau. "What a simpleton I was to provoke her! Two or three hundred pounds might do it for the present. Where am I to get them? If she carries out this dreadful threat and appeals to Oscar, what should I do? What could I do? And all the world would know—— Oh!" she shivered, "I must stop that. I must get some from him, if I can. I will try at once. Ugh; what a calamity the want of money is!"
She descended the stairs and entered the dining-room, where her husband was. He sat at the table writing letters, and seemed to be in the midst of business accounts.