But the good blood in her veins did not let her forget that she was penniless and ruined, and that she must drive a bargain with Abbotsford or starve. She rose from her low chair and looked at him, a beautiful woman still, and young. “Did you mean to marry a month ago, when you were ready to sell your love to kiss my hand?” she said slowly, cuttingly. “You were ready enough to come here to eat my bread; but it appears I am not fit to eat yours in return. Your wife, Lord Abbotsford, has my sympathy. She will marry a bad-tempered, miserly boy, who thinks of nothing but his own pleasure. Your presents”--she tore some rings off and threw them on a brass table, where they rang loud as they fell--“take them! And go--leave my house. You have told me to my face that I am an adventuress. I tell you that I am a penniless one, and that even so I would rather be myself than you.” She was magnificent as she faced him, and he stammered when he would have spoken. He might have said words that would have softened her, might only have hurried the steps of the Nemesis at his heels, but he lost his chance. The door of the small scented room opened quickly, and Ismay, in her shabby clothes, the air still fresh on her cheeks, stood on the threshold. Mrs. Trelane stood turned to stone. “Ismay!” she spoke at last. “What brings you here?” “I forgot. I thought you were alone!” the girl said quietly. She had only a contemptuous glance for Abbotsford, that contrasted him with the man she had just left. Her mother looked at her as she stood in the doorway; then at Abbotsford, who was utterly astonished. “You hear,” she said, “this is my daughter. You did not know I had one? Well, I have, and I let her be humiliated that I might have money--for other things.” She walked over and put her arms round the girl, forgetting for the moment how unwelcome she was in her fresh youth and beauty. “Go,” she said, over her shoulder; “leave us! We can starve together without you and your wife.” Abbotsford walked by them without a word, but for once in his ill-spent life he felt small. But the door had barely closed behind him before Mrs. Trelane drew away from her daughter, and stood looking at her; the anger Abbotsford had roused turned on the girl. “What madness is this?” she asked hardly. “Had you no sense that you must come in here? And do you know what your freak means to me? If we starve you have yourself to blame!” She threw herself into a chair, her nerves and temper thoroughly out of hand. And then started at the sound in her own child’s voice. “Oh, no, we sha’n’t!” said the girl, with a cynical smile on her red lips that were not like Mrs. Trelane’s. “You are too clever, and so”--deliberately--“am I! You forget I’m not a child any longer.” Mrs. Trelane looked up, and met eyes which were somehow those of an equal, another woman, and spoke truthfully in her raging disappointment.