"It means," said Mrs. Macgregor with quiet dignity, "what neither you nor I can help or harm."
"Helen, speak to me."
At the stern command Helen lifted her face, still hot with blushes, and stood looking straight into her mother's eyes. Her mother turned from her impatiently.
"Do you know what this means?" she said to Shock.
"What? I don't understand," replied Shock, gazing helplessly at the haughty, angry face turned toward him.
"Have you dared to speak to my daughter?"
"Oh, mamma," cried Helen, in an agony of mortification, "how can you?"
"You may well be ashamed," said Mrs. Fairbanks, who had quite lost control of herself, "throwing yourself at the head of a man so far beneath you, with no prospects, and who does not even want you."
"So far beneath, did you say?" cried Mrs. Macgregor quickly. "Woman, say no more. You shame yourself, let alone your child. Whist,"—checking the other's speech—"the blood in the veins of Hector Macgregor yonder" (pointing to the portrait of the Highland soldier on the wall) "was as proud as that in any Lowland trader of you."
"What sort of conduct, then, is this?" answered Mrs. Fairbanks angrily. "Have you encouraged your son?"