“Do you remember that she turned you out of your home? that she insulted you so that it was with difficulty I kept my temper?”
“You never did keep your temper, dear,” said Margaret with gentle impartiality, shaking her head; “and,” she added with a smile, “you insulted me far worse than ever Patty did. Should I bear malice? I will say a word to her before we go.”
When they rose, and when Patty saw who they were, the chalk which Colonel Piercey thought she was capable of using to play her part, yielded to a crimson so hot and vivid that its truth and reality were thoroughly proved. She half rose, too, then sat down again more determinedly than before.
“Mrs. Piercey,” said Margaret, “we saw you, and I could not pass you without a word.”
“You are very kind, I am sure, Margaret Osborne; but you could have left your table very well without coming near me.”
“Yes, perhaps,” said Margaret; “I should have said that, seeing you alone——”
“Oh, if I am alone it is my own fault!” cried Patty, with a heat of angry despair which almost took away her voice. Then it occurred to her that to show this passion was to lessen herself in the eyes of those to whom she most wished to appear happy and great. She forced her cry of rage into a little affected laugh. “I don’t often come here,” she said; “I dine generally in my own apartments. But to-day I expected friends who could not come, and so I thought I’d amuse myself by coming down here to see the wild beasts feed.”
As she said this, her eyes fell accidentally upon the kind lady who had made up her mind to make the acquaintance of this forlorn little woman, and startled that amiable person so that she sat gazing open-mouthed and open-eyed.
“In that case I am afraid I am only intruding,” said Margaret; “but I thought perhaps—if you are alone here, I—or my husband,” she added this with a sudden blush and smile, “might have been of some use——”
“Oh, your husband! I wish him joy, I am sure. So you stuck to him, though he hasn’t got Greyshott? Well, he’ll have the baronetcy, to be sure, when the old man dies—I hadn’t thought of that—without a penny! You must have been dead set on him, to be sure.”