“Mrs. Pimpernel,” said Arthur, “you have been very civil and friendly, asking me to your house, and I have done my best to repay it in the way that was expected. Pray don’t suppose I am ignorant it was an affair of barter--the best of everything, as you say, and the carriages, &c., on one side; but on my side a very just equivalent. Let us understand each other. What am I supposed to have done amiss? Of course, our mutual accommodation is over, after this scene--but I should be glad to know, before I accept my dismissal, what I am supposed to have done amiss----” “Equivalent! Accommodation! Oh you!---- Without a penny to bless yourself with--and living on the fat of the land---- Champagne like water, and everything you could set your face to. And now you brazen it out to me. Oh you poor creature! Oh you beggarly, penniless----” “Pray let us come to particulars,” said Arthur; “these reproaches are sadly vague. Come, things are not so bad after all. You expected me to be your attendant, a sort of upper footman, and I have been such. You expected me to lend the name of an Arden to all your junketings, and I have done it. You expected me, perhaps---- But I don’t want to bring in the name of Miss Pimpernel----” “No, don’t--if you dare!” cried the mother. “Mention my child, if you dare. As if she was not, and hadn’t always been, a deal too good for you. Thirty thousand pounds of her own, and as pretty a girl and as good a girl---- Oh, don’t you suppose she cares! She would not look at you out of her window, if there was not another man; she would never bemean herself, wouldn’t my Alice. You think yourself a great man with the ladies, but you may find out your mistake. Your cousin won’t see you, nor look at you--you know that. Oh, you may start! She has seen through you long ago, has Miss Arden--and if you thought for a moment that my Alice---- Good gracious!--to think a man should venture to look me in the face, after leaving my child to be killed, and going after a---- Don’t speak to me! Yes, I know you. I always saw through you. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Pimpernel, and that sweet angel upstairs----” And here Mrs. Pimpernel paused, and sobbed, and shed tears--giving her adversary the advantage over her. She was all the more angry that she felt she had wasted her words, and had not transfixed and made an end of him, as she had hoped--as she had meant to do. To see him standing there unsubdued, with a smile on his face, was gall and wormwood to her. She choked with impotent rage and passion. She could have flown at him, tooth and claw, if she had not put force on herself. Arthur felt the height of exasperation to which he was driving her, and, perhaps, enjoyed it; but nothing was to be made by continuing such a struggle.