“For what, madam? What have I done?”
She appealed to the priest, with a little momentary helpless gesture;
then bit her thin lips, as if stung by his silent perversity to
resolution.
“For the deceit you have long practised on us,” she said.
“O, madam,” I answered, “do you refer to the gentleman’s attentions to
me? I could hardly be so immodest as to confess of them to you, when I
did not even know to what end they were advanced.”
She held up her hand dully.
“I allude to your privately sitting to him for--for that--for his
model,” she said.
“Why, I had my respected example, madam,” said I. “I didn’t know but
what we were expected to accommodate the gentleman, seeing you
yourself gave us the lead.”
She rose quickly, striking her hand on the table.
“To make of yourself, pledged to Heaven, a shame and a wanton in his
eyes! O, ’twas infamous!--Not that,” she checked herself hurriedly, “I
blame him--not altogether. Art is a strange creditor, that makes
demands, scarce comprehensible to us, upon those who practise it. But,
_you_”--
“Are you blaming _me_, madam,” I cried, “because he has not paid _you_
to your liking?”
She turned away, as if quite sick. Father Pope took up the tale.
“Silence!” he roared, “you little dirty liar and trollop!”
“O, no doubt!” I piped him back, “because I rejected _your_
attentions.”
He took a step forward, his great fist clenched, his glasses blazing.
I don’t know how he might not have forgotten himself, had not Lady
Sophia come quickly between.
“Hush!” she said. “It is all to end here, Father.” She turned quietly
on me. “Father Pope is, I am sorry to say, justified. You have
deceived us in more things than one, Diana. It is not so long, I must
tell you, since I heard from the Sisters of les Madelonnettes that
your original story of your unhappy mother’s death was false, she
having but a few months ago returned penitent and broken to die in the
very convent she had so shamed and disgraced.”
I gazed at her, bewildered, for an instant, and then, as the truth
penetrated me, with a horror and passion beyond control.
“O,” I cried, “this is too much! And I believed her long dead of
grief; and you never told me--never let me see her: and I think you
are the wickedest woman in the world!”
She stood staring at me, silent, as if stricken.
“_Cave anguem!_” sneered the priest, with a brutal laugh.