'I hope so. Mrs. Pierson is to bring her. I want mamma to have the amusement of seeing her. My artistic friends are a kind of tonic to her—they excite her so much. She regards them as a sort of show—much as you do, in fact, only in a more charitable fashion.'
But he took no notice of what she was saying.
'Madame Desforêts is coming here?' he sharply repeated, bending forward, a curious accent in his tone.
'Yes!' she replied, with apparent surprise. Then with a careless smile: 'Oh, I remember when we were at Murewell, you were exercised that we should know her. Well, Mr. Langham, I told you then that you were only echoing unworthy gossip. I am in the same mind still. I have seen her, and you haven't. To me she is the greatest actress in the world, and an ill-used woman to boot!'
Her tone had warmed with every sentence. It struck him that she had wilfully brought up the topic—that it gave her pleasure to quarrel with him.
He put down his hat deliberately, got up, and stood with his back to the fire. She looked up at him curiously. But the dark regular face was almost hidden from her.
'It is strange,' he said slowly, 'very strange—that you should have told me this at this moment! Miss Leyburn, a great deal of the truth about Madame Desforêts I could neither tell, nor could you hear. There are charges against her proved in open court, again and again, which I could not even mention in your presence. But one thing I can speak of. Do you know the story of the sister at St. Petersburg?'
'I know no stories against Madame Desforêts,' said Rose loftily, her quickened breath responding to the energy of his tone. 'I have always chosen not to know them.'
'The newspapers were full of this particular story just before Christmas. I should have thought it must have reached you.'
'I did not see it,' she replied stiffly; 'and I cannot see what good purpose is to be served by your repeating it to me, Mr. Langham.'