"I was in the library half-an-hour ago," says Lauraine calmly. "Only for a moment—do not fancy I stooped to intentional eaves-dropping. I think it is for you to say whether Lady Jean Salomans—or I—leave your house immediately."
CHAPTER XXVIII
There is a moment's silence, then Sir Francis turns and confronts her with a face of sullen rage.
"What the devil do you mean?" he says fiercely. "Are you going to insult her?"
"I think the insult is to me," says Lauraine, very quietly. "I have been blind a long time; but if you can discuss my actions with another woman in the familiar manner I heard you discussing them with Lady Jean, it says enough to convince me of the terms of your acquaintanceship. I have no desire for any open scandal. You can explain to your friend that her presence here is no longer desirable. That is all."
"All!" scoffs Sir Francis savagely. "And do you suppose I'm going to be dictated to by you as to who stops in my house, or not? A nice model of virtue and propriety you are, to preach to other women! A beggar, who married me for my money, just as one of the vilest women would have done—a woman who has been carrying on a secret intrigue of her own for years, only is too devilish clever to be found out."
Lauraine stops him with a gesture of infinite scorn. "What you say is untrue. That I married you without any pretence of love, you know. I make no secret of it, and my mother and yourself both tried your utmost to persuade me into it. But since I married you, I have at least been true. Secret intrigues, as you call them, are for women of Lady Jean's stamp, not mine."
"And what about your own friendship for Keith?" sneers her husband. "Do you deny he is your lover?"
"No," answers Lauraine, turning very white, but still keeping her voice steady in its cold contempt. "But his love is worthy of the name; it is not a base, degrading passion that steeps itself in deceit—that, holding one face to the world, has another for the partner of its baseness. Keith has loved me from his boyhood. I was faithless to him, in a way; but I was not wholly to blame. For long after we met again I never suspected but that the old love was dead and buried. When I found it was not——" She stops abruptly, and a sudden, angry light comes into her eyes. "Why do I stop to explain? You—you cannot even imagine what a pure, self-denying love may be capable of! I think you have had your answer in his letter. He knows better than to palter with temptation. He has more respect for me, than you who claim to be—my husband."