"I should like to know," she said aggressively, "what you are prepared to do for her."
Sir Eustace smiled in his aloof, slightly supercilious fashion. He had been more or less prepared for Dinah's mother, but the temptation to address her as "My good woman" was almost more than he could withstand.
"Will you not allow me," he said, icily courteous, "to settle this important matter with Mr. Bathurst to-morrow? He will then be in a position to explain it to you."
Mrs. Bathurst made a movement of fierce impatience. She had been put in her place by this stranger and furiously she resented it. But the man was a baronet, and a marvellous catch for a son-in-law; and she did not dare to put her resentment into words.
She got up therefore, and flounced angrily to the door. Sir Eustace arose without haste and with a stretch of his long arm opened it for her.
She flung him a glance, half-hostile, half-awed, as she went through. She had a malignant hatred for the upper class, despite the fact that her own husband was a member thereof. And yet she held it in unwilling respect. Sir Eustace's nonchalantly administered snub was far harder to bear than any open rudeness from a man of her own standing would have been.
Fiercely indignant, she entered the kitchen, and caught Dinah peeping at herself in the shining surface of the warming-pan after having removed her hat.
"Ah, that's your game, my girl, is it?" she said. "You've come back the grand lady, have you? You've no further, use for your mother, I daresay. She may work her fingers to the bone for all you care--or ever will care again."
Dinah whizzed round, scarlet and crestfallen. "Oh, Mother! How you startled me! I only wanted to see if--if my hair was tidy."
"And that's one of your lies," said Mrs. Bathurst, with a heavy hand on her shoulder. "They've taught you how to juggle with the truth, that's plain. Oh yes, Lady Studley that is to be, you've learnt a lot since you've been away, I can see--learnt to despise your mother, I'll lay a wager. But I'll show you she's not to be despised by a prinking minx like you. What did I send you in here for, eh?"
"To--to see to the kettle," faltered Dinah, shrinking before the stern regard of the black eyes that so mercilessly held her own.
"And there it is ready to boil over, and you haven't touched it, you worthless little hussy, you! Take that--and dare to disobey me again!"