"I didn't know it was yours," she said.
"You didn't know?"
"How could I? Lena didn't happen to say nothin' about you before to-day, an' your mother has a different name."
"Don't talk of my mother!" he commanded.
Had Violet known all the truth of her mistress, it would probably have flashed over even the servant's dull brain that the difference between a woman beaten into slavery and a woman that married the man who, during her first marriage, had been her lover, was a difference not of kind, but of degree, and of a degree decidedly in the ethical favor of the former. However, she held her tongue.
It was the best shield she could have chosen. Through silence few fits of anger are strong enough to reach, and the quick temper of Beekman began slowly to spend itself.
"I don't see how you could come into any decent house," he grumbled, "no matter whether you knew whose it was or not."
Still Violet did not answer.
"I suppose you didn't think about that, though," Philip pursued.
Violet was as yet too stunned at all adequately to feel. With a shaking finger she drew invisible arabesques upon the shelf beside her.