Maria accepted it. The revelation gratuitously bestowed on her by Margery was beating its words upon her memory; and her brow, face and neck had flushed to a glowing crimson. Some might have flung the offered hand aside, and picked up their skirts with a jerk, and sailed away with an air; but Maria was a gentlewoman.
“How well you look!” exclaimed Charlotte, regarding her in some surprise. “Perhaps you are warm? I say, Mrs. George”—dropping her voice to a whisper—“whither do you think I am bound?”
“I cannot tell.”
“To see Lord Averil. He is back again, and stopping at old Max’s. I am going to badger him out of a promise not to hurt George Godolphin—about those rubbishing bonds, you know. I won’t leave him until I get it.”
“Yes,” said Maria.
“I will have it. Or—war to the knife, my lord! I should like to see him, or anybody else, attempt to refuse me anything I stood out for,” she added, with a triumphant glance, meant for the absent viscount. “Poor George has nobody here to fight his battles for him, and he can’t return to enter on them in person; so it’s well that some friend should do it. They are saying in the town this morning, that Averil has returned for the purpose of prosecuting: I mean to cut his prosecuting claws off.”
“It is a mistake,” said Maria. “Lord Averil has no intention of prosecuting.”
“How do you know?” bluntly asked Charlotte.
“I have just seen him.”
“You don’t mean to say you have been over to old Max’s?” exclaimed Charlotte, opening her brilliant black eyes very widely.