"Don't think I'll put up with it, my fine lady, for I won't! What has
love to do with such a chance as this? Tell me that, you little fool! Do
you suppose that either you or I have ever been in a position to
marry--for love?"
Her face was darkly passionate. Dinah felt as if she were in the clutches
of a tigress. "What--what do you mean?" she faltered through her
quivering lips.
"What do I mean?" Mrs. Bathurst broke into a sudden brutal laugh. "Ha!
What do I mean?" she said. "I'll tell you, shall I? Yes, I'll tell you!
I'll show you the shame that I've covered all these years. I mean that I
married because of you--for no other reason. I married because I'd been
betrayed--and left. Now do you understand why it isn't for you to pick
and choose--you who have been the plague-spot of my life, the thorn in my
side ever since you first stirred there--a perpetual reminder of what I
would have given my very soul to forget? Do you understand, I say? Do you
understand? Or must I put it plainer still? You--the child of my
shame--to dare to set yourself up against me!"
She ended upon what was almost a note of loathing, and Dinah shuddered
from head to foot. It was to her as if she had been rolled in pitch. She
felt overwhelmed with the cruel degradation of it, the unspeakable shame.
Mrs. Bathurst watched her anguished distress with a species of bitter
satisfaction.
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