"It's true—it must be true!" insisted Dolores, half frightened yet still too surcharged with anger to contain herself. "If it isn't true, how could you break his heart?—the man who saved you from that terrible savage wilderness!"
"I—I cannot explain to you. It's something that—"
"I know! You needn't tell me. It's mamma. She's been knocking him. I'll bet she started knocking him when she first cabled to you—at least she would have, had she known anything about him. Think I don't know mamma and her methods? If only he'd been his lordship—Owh, deah! what a difference, don't y' know! She'd never have let you get out of England unmarried!"
"Dolores! this is quite enough!"
"The Countess of Avondale, future Duchess of Ruthby! Think I don't see through mamma's little game? And you'd shillyshally around, and throw over the true, noble hero to whom you owe everything—whom you've pretended you loved—to run after a title, an Englishman, when you could have that big-hearted American!"
Genevieve's lips straightened. "What a patriot!" she rejoined with quiet irony. "You, of course, would never dream of marrying an Englishman."
"That's none of your business," snapped Dolores, not a little taken aback by the counter attack.
"You spoke about pretence and hypocrisy," went on Genevieve. "How about the way you tease and make sport of Lord Avondale?"
For a moment the younger girl stood quivering, transfixed by the dart. Suddenly she put her hands before her eyes and rushed from the room in a storm of tears.
Genevieve started up as if to hasten after her, but checked herself and sank back into her chair. For a long time she sat motionless, in the blank dreary silence of profound grief, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, dry and lustreless.