"Morals?" replied Mrs. Diggs, with a quick laugh that seemed to crackle.

"It's amusing, truly, to hear such a word as that from you to me, Sylvia!"

Mrs. Lee again lifted her eyes. She was smiling, and her small, dark head, garnished with a tiny crimson bonnet, was set very much sideways.

"My dear Kate," she said, "did it ever occur to you how enormously vulgar you can be at a pinch?"

"I'd answer that question if I didn't see through the trick of it. We're not talking of manners, if you please; we're talking of morals. Do you consider that there is anything moral in a mean, underhand revenge? That is exactly what you resorted to. To serve a spiteful hatred, you would have had Mrs. Twining dart like a Fury into yonder dining-room."

"If it were not unladylike, I should tell you that you are uttering a falsehood."

"Bah! You can tell me so a thousand times, if you want. Why did you never let Claire's mother know her marriage-name or her address until to-day? Why did you keep her in the hospital until to-day? Why, unless you wanted to unloose her, like a raging lioness?"

"Really, Kate, you have pa.s.sed the bounds of impertinence. You are now simply diverting."

Mrs. Diggs laughed a second time. "I intend to divert you still further, Sylvia, before I have done with you."

Mrs. Lee took a step or two in an oblique direction. The lids of her dark eyes had begun to move rapidly. "I have the option of declining to be bored," she answered, in a m.u.f.fled voice, "unless you intend personal violence. In that case, you know, there are always the footmen."

"Answer me one question, please, if you have a spark of honesty left.

What right had you to believe that Claire Hollister ever wronged her mother?"

"You haven't yet become violent. You are still diverting. So I will answer. She left her alone in poverty, neglect, and misery."

"She left her after a life of tyranny and persecution. She left her a strong, hale, able woman. She left her with ten, twenty times as much money in her pocket as Claire herself had--for Claire had scarcely anything, and this persecuted heroine of a mother had enough money to give her dead husband decent Christian burial, yet refused it. Did she tell you that, Sylvia, when you found her sick in the hospital? Did she tell you how her daughter cried out in grief, beside the very body of a dead and beloved father, that if only he were not laid in Potter's Field--if only he might receive holy rites of interment, she would work, even slave, for her mother's support? Did she tell you--this model and deeply wronged parent--that her child got from her nothing but a surly refusal? Did she tell you that Claire then, and only then, resolved to leave her forever? Did she tell you how Claire, faithful till the last, followed her father, on foot or by street-car, to his pauper grave, and saw the clods heaped over him as if he had been a dead dog, while she, his lawful wife, stayed shamelessly at home? No, Sylvia; I will warrant that she made another plausible story, nearly all false, with just a grain of truth. And you readily accepted it, because it suited your malicious ends to do so!"

By this time Mrs. Lee had produced an exquisite fan of dark satin, painted with charming figures of birds and flowers. While she used the fan, slowly and gracefully, she answered: "And is it possible that you credit this theatrical improbability, Kate?"

Mrs. Diggs looked stern. "I don't merely believe it--I know it," she said. "I have seen the woman. To see her--to hear her speak, was enough.

You, too, have had both experiences."

Mrs. Lee still slowly fanned herself. "That is quite true. I have. The charity-burial story is the purest nonsense, the most preposterous invention, on your dear friend's part. That is my confident belief; I a.s.sure you it is. Do you want me any more, Kate? Or are you going to keep me here with your wild tales an hour or two longer?"

Mrs. Diggs never in her life, with all her personal deficiencies, looked so simply and calmly dignified as when she responded:--

"I shall keep you only a very little while longer, Sylvia. You may or may not have wanted Claire's mother to enter that dining-room. But you had your hour for her coming neatly timed, and any mortification, any distress that you could have inflicted would have been a pleasure to you. But I think that in all this wily and clever performance you quite failed to remember me. I'm very staunch, very loyal to Claire. And I give you my word that your share in the event of to-day shall not go unpunished."

Mrs. Lee stopped fanning herself. "Unpunished?" she repeated, haughtily enough.

"Oh, yes. Are you surprised at the word? Let me explain it. I merely mean that in as short a time as I can possibly command Stuart Goldwin shall know every detail of your recent behavior. And pray don't have the least fear that he will disbelieve me. He knows how devoted _I_ am to Claire Hollister. You know just how devoted to her _he_ is. I wonder in what kind of estimation he will hold you after I have narrated my little story, not missing a single particular ... not one, Sylvia--rest certain of that!"

Mrs. Lee began to fan herself again, and at the same time moved away.

Mrs. Diggs's eyes followed the slim, retreating figure. She had already seen that her cousin's face wore an expression of pained affright.

Claire's guests had begun to make their farewells. Mrs. Lee did not join them in this civility. She slipped from the drawing-room, instead, unnoticed by any one, except her late antagonist, and perhaps Claire herself.

'She will try to meet Goldwin before I do,' thought Mrs. Diggs. 'But she will not succeed. I, too, will leave without saying good-by to Claire, who might not approve my scheme of chastis.e.m.e.nt if she learned it. But it is no affair of hers. I am doing it entirely on my own account. I propose to make Sylvia Lee remember this day as long as she lives.'

Among the carriages of the departing guests, that of Mrs. Lee was the first one to roll away. The carriage of Mrs. Diggs soon followed it.

Both were driven at a rapid rate, and for a certain time in the same direction. But ultimately the courses of the two vehicles diverged.

Each lady sent a telegram to the same destination, less than ten minutes afterward. And each lady, after so doing, employed the same formula of reflection: 'He will come as soon as he receives it.'

But Mrs. Diggs's summons was the more potent; it contained the name of Claire.

XXII.

Goldwin was the recipient of the two telegrams. He went first (being driven rapidly in a cab from his Wall Street place of business) to the house of Mrs. Diggs.

He remained with her for at least two hours. It was now somewhat late in the afternoon. He dined at his club, and by eight o'clock in the evening was ringing the bell of Mrs. Lee's residence.

She was alone, and received him with a freezing manner. "At last you are here," she said.

"At last," he replied, with careless ambiguity, throwing himself into an arm-chair, and looking straight at a very comfortable wood-fire that blazed not far off.

"Did you receive my telegram?"

"I did."

"In time to come to me when it entreated you to come?"

"I received it this afternoon. I have been prevented from making my appearance until now."

His voice was quite as cold and distant as her own. She went up to his chair and laid her hand upon its arm.

"Your manner is very abrupt and strange," she said, in greatly softened tones. "Has anything occurred?"

He turned and met her look. He nodded significantly once or twice before answering. "Yes, something has occurred, most decidedly. Can't you guess what it is? If so, you will save me the distress of explaining."

For several moments she was silent. "I suppose you mean that you have seen Kate Diggs," she then hazarded.

He nodded again. "I have," he replied.

"Ah!" said Mrs. Lee, with an airy satire. "Then she must have made a very strong case against me, as the lawyers phrase it."

"Undoubtedly she has," he answered, rising. "I have heard the prosecution; do you want me to hear the defense?"

"Of course I demand that you shall do so," she exclaimed, "although I don't at all like the word you describe it by! I have no need whatever of defending myself."

Goldwin gave one of his rich, mellow laughs. The twinkle had come back to his eye; all his wonted geniality seemed to reclothe him. And yet his companion rather felt than saw that it was worn as an ironical disguise.

"Upon my word, I think you have been very hardly treated," he declared.

The sting of the real sarcasm pierced her, then, and she sensibly recoiled. "You ought to have been allowed the privilege of witnessing your little scandalous comedy, after you had planned it so cleverly. How you must have suffered when it all went off in so tame and quiet a way!"

Mrs. Lee, pale and with kindling eyes, slightly stamped one small foot.

The sound wrought by this action was faint, though quite audible.