"Laughing at you! Me, miss! I shouldn't think of doing such a thing."
"Then may I ask you to be as candid as myself? Before this my dream might have been something more solid than a dream, if it had not been for you."
"For me!"
Lizzie was open-eyed and open-mouthed.
"Pray don't let us play the actress off the boards. Don't you think we might confine that sort of thing to our hours of business?"
"But I don't understand you, miss. Do you mean that you might have been the Countess of Bermondsey if it had not been for me?"
Miss Graham's eyes were as keen and cold as the other's were hot and eager.
"I see that a denial is trembling on your lips. Pray don't trouble yourself to utter it. Is that the sort of person you are? I assure you that, in this case, at least, you make a mistake; for unfortunately I speak from knowledge." She stopped, then resumed with a strain of passion in her voice which, almost with every word, became more strenuous. "The Earl of Bermondsey, as, doubtless, you are aware, although for reasons of your own you may feign ignorance, has, for some time, been a friend of mine. I had reason to believe that he might become more, until, recently, the outward tokens of his friendship waned. I looked for the reason. I found it. He has, lately, become an assiduous patron of the Cerulean Theatre. This morning I taxed him with it. He offered no denial. I asked him for the lady's name. He floundered--as you may be aware his lordship is an adept at floundering--and, as he floundered, a piece of paper fell from his pocket on to the floor. I picked it up. On it was a lady's name and her address. I asked if she was the attraction at the Cerulean. He owned that she was. He said things of her," the speaker's voice quivered, "which I do not care to recount at second hand to you. 'Lizzie Emmett, 14 Hercules Buildings, Westminster,' was on the paper, and it was of you those things were said."
"Me!"
The actress moved slightly away from the fireplace, speaking with a strength of feeling and an eloquence of gesture which, had she been capable of such efforts on the stage, would have gained her immortality.