“Yes?” she said. “You did not end your sentence?”
Beatrice cast an ironically despairing look behind her at the servants.
“Well,” she said, “if you will have it: that was why I would not marry him. Did you not know that, Mistress?”
It was so daring that Margaret caught her breath suddenly; and looked hopelessly round. Her father and brother had their eyes steadily bent on the table; and the priest was looking oddly at the quiet angry woman opposite him.
Then Sir James slid deftly in, after a sufficient pause to let the lesson sink home; and began to talk of indifferent things; and Beatrice answered him with the same ease.
Lady Torridon made one more attempt just before the end of supper, when the servants had left the room.
“You are living on—” she corrected herself ostentatiously—“you are living with any other family now, Mistress Atherton? I remember my son Ralph telling me you were almost one of Master More’s household.”
Beatrice met her eyes with a delightful smile.
“I am living on—with your family at this time, Mistress Torridon.”
There was no more to be said just then. The girl had not only turned her hostess’ point, but had pricked her shrewdly in riposte, three times; and the last was the sharpest of all.