Grace returned a few steps, threateningly.
“My letters shall be followed by my witnesses,” she proceeded.
“I shall refuse to receive your witnesses.”
“Refuse at your peril. I will appeal to the law.”
Lady Janet smiled.
“I don’t pretend to much knowledge of the subject,” she said; “but I should be surprised indeed if I discovered that you had any claim on me which the law could enforce. However, let us suppose that you can set the law in action. You know as well as I do that the only motive power which can do that is—money. I am rich; fees, costs, and all the rest of it are matters of no sort of consequence to me. May I ask if you are in the same position?”
The question silenced Grace. So far as money was concerned, she was literally at the end of her resources. Her only friends were friends in Canada. After what she had said to him in the boudoir, it would be quite useless to appeal to the sympathies of Julian Gray. In the pecuniary sense, and in one word, she was absolutely incapable of gratifying her own vindictive longings. And there sat the mistress of Mablethorpe House, perfectly well aware of it.
Lady Janet pointed to the empty chair.
“Suppose you sit down again?” she suggested. “The course of our interview seems to have brought us back to the question that I asked you when you came into my room. Instead of threatening me with the law, suppose you consider the propriety of permitting me to be of some use to you. I am in the habit of assisting ladies in embarrassed circumstances, and nobody knows of it but my steward—who keeps the accounts—and myself. Once more, let me inquire if a little advance of the pecuniary sort (delicately offered) would be acceptable to you?”
Grace returned slowly to the chair that she had left. She stood by it, with one hand grasping the top rail, and with her eyes fixed in mocking scrutiny on Lady Janet’s face.