Lady Rose's Daughter

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

"Yes, yes, that's it!" exclaimed Lord Lackington--it! When Lady Henry wanted a companion--and fate brought her Miss Le Breton--"

"Last night's coffee was already drunk," put in Sir Wilfrid.

Meredith's voice, raised and a trifle harsh, made itself heard.

"Why you should dignify an ugly jealousy by fine words I don't know. For some women--women like our old friend--gratitude is hard. That is the moral of this tale."

"The only one?" said Sir Wilfrid, not without a mocking twist of the lip.

"The only one that matters. Lady Henry had found, or might have found, a daughter--"

"I understand she bargained for a companion."

"Very well. Then she stands upon her foolish rights, and loses both daughter and companion. At seventy, life doesn't forgive you a blunder of that kind."

Sir Wilfrid silently shook his head. Meredith threw back his blanched mane of hair, his deep eyes kindling under the implied contradiction.

"I am an old comrade of Lady Henry's," he said, quickly. "My record, you'll find, comes next to yours, Bury. But if Lady Henry is determined to make a quarrel of this, she must make it. I regret nothing."