"Thank God!" she said, with emotion. "Thank God, Dick. But----"
"But what!" I retorted sharply; for in the telling of the story I had come to see more clearly than before how cruelly I had been treated. "But what?"
"Well, just this," she said gently. "Have you not brought it on yourself in a measure? If you had been more--that is, I mean, if you had not been so----"
"So what?" I cried querulously, seeing her hesitate.
"Well, so quick to think that it was Matthew Smith--and a pistol," she answered, smiling rather heartlessly. "That is all."
"There was a mist," I said.
She laughed in her odd way. "Of course, Dick, there was a mist," she agreed. "And you cannot make bricks without straw. And after all you did make bricks in St. James's Square, and it is not for me to find fault. But there is a thing to be done, and it must be done." And her lips closed firmly, after a fashion I remembered, and still remember, having seen it a hundred times since that day, and learned to humour it. "One that must be done!" she continued. "Dick, you will not leave the Duke to be ruined by Matthew Smith? You will not lie here and let those rogues work their will on him? Sir John has denounced him."
"And may denounce me!" I said, aghast at the notion. "May denounce me," I continued with agitation. "Will denounce me. If it was not the Duke who was at Ashford, it was I!"
"And who are you?" she retorted, with a look that withered me. "Who will care whether you met Sir John at Ashford or not? King William--call him Dutchman, boor, drunkard, as it's the fashion this side, call him I say what you will--at least he flies at high game, and does not hawk at mice!"
"Mice?"