“Then you can tell me a great deal.  Begin—­begin!” says Lady Rylton, waving her hand in her airiest style.  “I guessed as much!  I always hated that girl!  Well—­and so——­ Do go on!”

“I hardly know what you expect me to say,” says Mrs. Bethune coldly, and with a hatred very badly suppressed.

“You know perfectly well,” says her aunt.  “I wish to know how Maurice and his wife are getting on.”

“How can I answer that?” says Marian, turning upon her like one brought to bay.

It is too bitter to her, this cross-examination; it savours of a servitude that she must either endure or—­starve!

“It is quite simple,” says Lady Rylton.  She looks at Marian with a certain delight in her eyes—­the delight that tyrants know.  She has this creature at her heels, and she will drag her to her death.  “I am waiting,” says she.  “My good girl, why don’t you answer?  What of Maurice and his wife?”

“They are not on good terms, I think,” says Mrs. Bethune sullenly.

“No?  And whose fault is that?” Lady Rylton catches the tip of Marian’s gown, and draws her to her.  When she has made her turn, so that she can study and gloat over the rapid changes of her face, she says, “Yours?” in a light, questioning way.

She smiles as she asks her question—­a hateful smile.  There is something in it almost devilish—­a compelling of the woman before her to remember days that should be dead, and a secret that should have been hers alone.

“Not mine, certainly,” says Marian, clearing her throat as though it is a little dry, but otherwise defying the scrutiny of the other.

“And yet you say they are not on good terms!” Lady Rylton pauses as if thinking, and then goes on.  “No wonder, too,” says she, with a shrug.  “Two people with two such tempers!”

“Has Tita a temper?” asks Marian indifferently.

Lady Rylton regards her curiously.

“Have you not found that out yet?” asks she.

“No,” coldly.

“It argues badly for you,” says her aunt, with a small, malicious smile.  “She has shown you none of it, then?”

“None,” distinctly.

“My dear Marian, I am afraid Maurice is proving false,” says Lady Rylton, leaning back in her chair, and giving way to soft, delicate mirth—­the mirth that suits her Dresden china sort of beauty.  “Evidently our dear Tita is not afraid of you.”

“You take a wrong reading of it, perhaps,” says Mrs. Bethune, who is now, in spite of all her efforts to be emotionless, a little pale.  “She is simply so indifferent to Maurice, that she does not care whom he likes or dislikes—­with whom he spends—­or wastes his time.  Or with whom he——­”

“Flirts?” puts in Lady Rylton, lifting her brows; there is most insolent meaning in her tone.

For the first time Mrs. Bethune loses herself; she turns upon her aunt, her eyes flashing.