I was thinking all the time how
horrid it was for him to have to do what he did."
"Well, my dear child, that was no concern of yours, you need not have been
unhappy about it."
"No, mama. But I was; and unhappy that I had to sit to listen to him. I
wanted desperately to get away, that was all. I came the very instant that
I could."
"Instead of which, I should have said," explained the eager Bessie, "I
should have said: 'Until this moment I have not given your brother a
thought, Sir Francis. But now that you have dared--_dared_ to insult me
and my family in such a way, I will tell you what I will do. I will marry
him to-morrow morning. I'd have done it too," Bessie declared, looking
round the table, eyes shining with strong self-approval.
"My dear Bessie. Don't let your feelings run away with you so much," Mrs.
Day reproved.
"Deleah has no dignity, mama. Any one can see Deleah behaved without the
least dignity."
Deleah listened miserably, pretending not to hear. She did not agree with
Bessie's idea of what was dignified, but she knew that she had cut a poor
figure. She felt humiliated, hurt, helpless. Sir Francis Forcus had been
for her her ideal of what a man and a gentleman should be.
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