“Take it, then.”
The two women still eyed each other—the one stern and keen as a white frost, the other florid and furtive, subduedly vindictive.
“You’ll tell him?”
Joan nodded.
“Nice old gentleman, your father, when—”
The revulsion was instantaneous. Sudden color surged into the girl’s face; her eyes flamed. Like a figure of divine vengeance she stood as at the gate of Eden, hounding shame into the dark unknown.
“Woman—”
“Ah!”
“You have fouled a home. You are unclean. You go to-night.”
A sudden grim sympathy leaped lightning-like from face to face. Rebecca cringed, gave back a step. The gray eyes scathed her with a scorn that stripped her soul naked in the sun. She gave a hoarse cry, cowered back, a woman scourged by a woman’s scorn.