"I heard a piece of news to-day," he said, presently, in his most
even tone; but Mabel's start upon her seat was almost a leap, while
her fingers moved faster and more irregularly.
"I suspect, from your unsettled demeanor this evening, that it
reached you before it did me," continued he. "I can attribute your
badly suppressed pertubation to no other cause. Mrs. Sutton is such
an indefatigable gossip, that this item could hardly have passed her
by. Has she told you that Rosa Tazewell is shortly to become Mrs.
Chilton?"
"She has."
He thought she was nerving herself to a simulation of hardihood, and
the long-indulged habit of censorship was strong upon him.
"I had trusted, until to-day, Mabel, that you had conquered that
disgraceful weakness," he resumed, yet more pitilessly.
Domination was one of his besetting sins. He never saw a helpless or
cowering thing without feeling the inclination to set his foot upon
it, and the least show of resistance in such, piqued him into
despotism.
"I was aware that it was not dead when you married a man worth a
thousand such scoundrels as that fellow in Philadelphia. I believed
that the sentiment was powerful in impelling you to that marriage,
and that this irrevocable measure would be an antidote to the evil.
It was a wise course, and I commended you for pursuing it. But I am
too well read in your countenance and moods not to see that there is
something far amiss with you. You have been playing a part for
twenty-four hours, and you have played it wretchedly. Your nervous
flutters and laugh, your sudden changes of complexion, and the
incoherence of your language, would betray you to the least
penetrating observer. I caution you to be on your guard lest your
husband should take just offence at all this. The need of
dissimulation is the evidence that something is radically wrong in
your moral nature, and is derogatory to your lawful partner. I am
ashamed to remind you of the golden maxim of wedded life--that
without perfect and mutual confidence there can be no substantial
happiness. Does Dorrance know of your escapade at the Springs?"
"If you refer to my engagement to Mr. Chilton, I told him of it
before our marriage."
"I rejoice to hear it--am pleased at this one proof of good sense
and right feeling," in lofty patronage. "You owed him no less. You
have, without doubt been informed long since how I obtained the most
important proof against that villain?"