Hetta, as soon as she had dismissed her lover, went up at once to her own room. Thither she was soon followed by her mother, whose anxious ear had heard the closing of the front door. 'Well; what has he said?' asked Lady Carbury. Hetta was in tears,--or very nigh to tears,-- struggling to repress them, and struggling almost successfully. 'You have found that what we told you about that woman was all true.'
'Enough of it was true,' said Hetta, who, angry as she was with her lover, was not on that account less angry with her mother for disturbing her bliss.
'What do you mean by that, Hetta? Had you not better speak to me openly?'
'I say, mamma, that enough was true. I do not know how to speak more openly. I need not go into all the miserable story of the woman. He is like other men, I suppose. He has entangled himself with some abominable creature and then when he is tired of her thinks that he has nothing to do but to say so,--and to begin with somebody else.'
'Roger Carbury is very different.'
'Oh, mamma, you will make me ill if you go on like that. It seems to me that you do not understand in the least.'
'I say he is not like that.'
'Not in the least. Of course I know that he is not in the least like that.'
'I say that he can be trusted.'
'Of course he can be trusted. Who doubts it?'
'And that if you would give yourself to him, there would be no cause for any alarm.'
'Mamma,' said Hetta jumping up, 'how can you talk to me in that way? As soon as one man doesn't suit, I am to give myself to another! Oh, mamma, how can you propose it? Nothing on earth will ever induce me to be more to Roger Carbury than I am now.'
'You have told Mr Montague that he is not to come here again?'
'I don't know what I told him, but he knows very well what I mean.'
'That it is all over?' Hetta made no reply. 'Hetta, I have a right to ask that, and I have a right to expect a reply. I do not say that you have hitherto behaved badly about Mr Montague.'
'I have not behaved badly. I have told you everything. I have done nothing that I am ashamed of.'
'But we have now found out that he has behaved very badly. He has come here to you,--with unexampled treachery to your cousin Roger--'