"With Miss Turner."
"What nonsense! Idling about with a senseless child!"
"I suppose it is nothing but nonsense?" spoke Karl, incautiously. "She--Miss Turner--would scarcely be the right woman in the right place."
His mother glanced at him sharply. "In what place?--what woman?"
"As Lady Andinnian."
Karl had angered his mother before in his lifetime, but scarcely ever as now. She turned livid as death, and took up the first thing that came to her hand--a silver inkstand, kept for show, not use--and held it as if she would hurl it at his head.
"How dare you, sir, even in supposition, so traduce your brother?"
"I beg your pardon, mother. I spoke without thought."
As she was putting down the inkstand, Adam came in. He saw that something was amiss. Mrs. Andinnian spoke abruptly about the invitation for the evening, and asked if he would go. Adam said he could go, and she left the room to give, herself, a verbal answer to the waiting servant.
"What was the matter, Karl?"