"
"Do you quite realize the arrogance of that attitude?"
"I accept all its responsibility, Imogen."
"But _we_ cannot accept it in you," said Imogen, her voice sinking to the
hard quiver of reality that Jack well knew;--"_we_ can't fail in our duty
to him because you have always failed in yours. _We_ are in no way bound to
consider you-who never considered him."
"Imogen," said her mother, raising her eyes with a look of command; "you
forget yourself. Be still."
Imogen's face froze to stone. Such words, such a look, she had never met
before. She stood silent, helpless, rage and despair at her heart.
But Mr. Potts did not lag behind his duty. His hand still wrapped,
Moses-like, in his beard, his eyes bent in holy wrath upon his hostess, he
rose to his feet, and Mrs. Potts, in recounting the scene--one of the most
thrilling of her life--always said that never had she seen Delancy so
superbly _true_, never had she seen blood so _tell_.
"I must say to you, Mrs. Upton, with the deepest pain," he said, "that I
agree with Miss Imogen. I must inform you, Mrs. Upton, that you have no
right, legal or moral, to bind us by your own shortcoming. Miss Imogen and
I may do our duty without your help or consent."
"I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Potts," Valerie replied. She had,
unseeingly, taken up her pen again and, with a gesture habitual to her, was
drawing squares and crosses on the blotter under her hand.
Pages:
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264