‘Not always,’ he added; and this time there was no mistaking the deliberate insolence of his tone. ‘Sometimes a woman sells herself when she has n’t got it, and sometimes, mistrusting her own powers of management, she invites other people to take care of it for her.’ There was a dead silence for a moment. Richard, fixing his merciless gaze upon her face, saw the colour ebb from it, leaving the very lips white. His shot had struck home—he was glad of it. ‘What do you mean?’ said Rosalie at last, lifting her eyes, which she had involuntarily lowered, and looking at him steadily. ‘I think you must know what I mean,’ he returned, with a smile almost insulting in its contemptuousness. ‘Why should you attack me?’ she inquired, without flinching, though her large eyes looked pathetic in their surprise and pain. ‘Am I attacking you? I am merely stating facts. When a penniless young girl marries a prosperous old man one is bound to conclude that his money is the chief attraction, and when that same girl, finding herself a few years later rich and free, offers herself for the second time to a man forty years older than herself—’ ‘Offers herself?’ cried Rosalie, turning upon him fiercely while the blood returned impetuously to her face; ‘how dare you say such an insulting thing to me?’ ‘Is it not true?’ he inquired. ‘I have the statement on most excellent authority.’ Rosalie dropped her flower-laden skirt, a yellow shower falling at her feet, and buried her face in her hands. ‘Oh,’ she groaned, ‘Isaac told you that! He—he said—oh, how could he!’ The beautiful shoulders heaved, tears trickled through her fingers, but Richard steeled his heart against her. Let her suffer—let her cry! These selfish tears could not expiate the things that she had done. Tears and subterfuges were woman’s natural weapons, but they should not avail her. She should be made to realise her own vileness. ‘Do you deny it?’ he said sternly. Rosalie dropped her hands, and raised her head: her lip was still quivering, but her eyes shone through the tears. ‘I deny nothing,’ she said; and without another word walked away from him, down the slope, and across the field, passing through a gate at the further end. Richard stood looking after her until she was out of sight; then his eyes reverted to the heap of primroses lying at his feet—a tumbled heap, sweet, and dewy, and fresh—just as they had fallen from her gown. Mechanically he stooped and began to gather them together, but presently he threw back again the flowers he had picked up. ‘What should I do with them?’ he murmured, half aloud. Straightening himself he passed his hand across his brow, and looked round him with a blank stare. ‘What have I done?’ he said. CHAPTER V