"I really do wish you would spare me all further allusion to that good woman. I can bear that kind of fun from any one but you. Why will you? she is old enough to be my mother. She is fat, and painted, and ridiculous. You think me totally without romance? I wish to heaven I were. There is a reason, that makes your saying all that particularly cruel. I am not the sordid creature you take me for. I'm not insensible. I'm not a mere stock of stone. Never was human being more capable of the wildest passion. Oh, if I dare tell you all!" Was all this acting? Certainly not. Never was shallow man, for the moment, more in earnest. Cool enough he was, although he had always admired this young lady, when he entered the room. He had made that entrance, nevertheless, in a spirit quite dramatic. But Miss Maubray never looked so brilliant, never half so tender. He took fire--the situation aiding quite unexpectedly--and the flame was real. It might have been over as quickly as a balloon on fire; but for the moment the conflagration was intense. How was Miss Maubray affected? An immensely abler performer than the young gentleman who had entered the room with his part at his fingers' ends, and all his looks and emphasis arranged--only to break through all this, and begin extemporising wildly--she, on the contrary, maintained her _rôle_ with admirable coolness. It was not, perhaps, so easy; for notwithstanding appearances, her histrionic powers were severely tasked; for never was she more angry. Her self-esteem was wounded; the fancy (it was no more), she had cherished for him was gone, and a great disgust was there instead. "You shall ask me no questions till I have done asking mine," said the young lady, with decision; "and I will speak as much as I please of Lady May!" This jealousy flattered Sir Richard. "And I will say this," continued Grace Maubray, "you never address her except as a lover, in what you romantic people would call the language of love." "Now, now, now! How can you say that? Is that fair?" "You do." "No, really, I swear--that's _too_ bad!" "Yes, the other day, when you spoke to her at the carriage window--you did not think I heard--you accused her so tenderly of having failed to go to Lady Harbroke's garden-party, and you couldn't say what you meant in plain terms, but you said, 'Why were you false?'" "I didn't, I swear." "Oh! you did; I heard every syllable; 'false' was the word." "Well, if I said 'false,' I must have been thinking of her hair; for she is really a very honest old woman." At this moment a female voice in distress is heard, and poor Lady May comes pushing out of the pretty little room, in which Grace Maubray had placed her, sobbing and shedding floods of tears. "I can't stay there any longer, for I hear everything; I can't help hearing every word--honest old woman, and all--opprobrious. Oh! how _can_ people be so? how _can_ they? Oh! I'm very angry--I'm very angry--I'm very angry!"