“By behaving as you have been behaving since we came here—refusing to make a home for yourself; by hanging round my neck so that it will appear that any one who takes me must take you also. I came in here to tell you,” she went on, “that this is your last chance. I shall never give you another.”
Joan remained silent, and her silence added to her mother’s helpless rage. She moved a step nearer to her and flung the javelin which she always knew would strike deep.
“You have made yourself a laughing-stock for all London for years. You are mad about a man who disgraced and ruined himself.”
She saw the javelin quiver as it struck; but Joan’s voice as it answered her had a quality of low and deadly steadiness.
“You have said that a thousand times, and you will say it another thousand—though you know the story was a lie and was proved to be one.”
Lady Mallowe knew her way thoroughly.
“Who remembers the denials? What the world remembers is that Jem Temple Barholm was stamped as a cheat and a trickster. No one has time to remember the other thing. He is dead—dead! When a man’s dead it’s too late.”
She was desperate enough to drive her javelin home deeper than she had ever chanced to drive it before. The truth—the awful truth she uttered shook Joan from head to foot. She sprang up and stood before her in heart-wrung fury.
“Oh! You are a hideously cruel woman!” she cried. “They say even tigers care for their young! But you—you can say that to me. ‘When a man’s dead, it’s too late.’”
“It is too late—it is too late!” Lady Mallowe persisted. Why had not she struck this note before? It was breaking Joan’s will: “I would say anything to bring you to your senses. I came here because it is your last chance. Palliser knew what he was saying when he made a joke of it just now. He knew it wasn’t a joke. You might have been the Duchess of Merthshire; you might have been Lady St. Maur, with a husband with millions. And here you are. You know what’s before you—when I am out of the trap.”