“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, “I have not been able to bury my memory in the wedding-service, nor forget my past in a honeymoon. I am still as unregenerate as, say, Kit Carmichael was before he met you.”
“You are a great deal worse,” returned Mrs. Kit.
“You refuse a very pretty compliment, Mrs. Carmichael,” I replied.
“Yes, at Kit’s expense. It was you who made Kit as bad as he was. He told me so.”
The perfidy of these married friends! Rol Butterfield, you have no use for them when they sacrifice you on their nuptial altars. Their eyes lost their singleness with their hearts, and your reputation has gone for a kiss. Well, you have your revenge on their wives, if you care to use it.
The spark of righteous war was kindled within me. I leaned forward, and spoke my speech with icy distinctness.
“So I am responsible for Carmichael’s past, am I, Mrs. Kit? Listen to me. There was not a more abandoned and desperately wicked trio in London than Kit Carmichael--your meek brother, Miss Dixon--and Loring----”
Mrs. Chatterton endeavoured to stop me with a hot teaspoon laid on my hand, but I still testified.
“And Loring Chatterton. Not content with steeping their own souls in infamy, they must needs go afield, and corrupt the spotless name of one--oh, Carrie, Carrie, what your poor brother has suffered! And now to be told in his old--his middle--age that he did it all!”
Mrs. Kit and Cicely Vicars had put their heads together, and were endeavouring to put aside the damning testimony in mock admiration of the dramatic skill with which it was uttered. Cicely Vicars had best be very careful. I was to be leaned up in a corner and given tea, was I?
“Doesn’t Mr. Butterfield look well with the light behind him?” said Mrs. Vicars with a pretty gesture of her hand. Mrs. Vicars paints flowers, and asks her friends what they would really like for wedding presents.
“Mr. Butterfield may have the Light behind him, Mrs. Vicars,” I replied, “but he has no regrets for a misspent youth. Charlie Vicars wasted his youth most shamefully. Mornings in the park, with a young lady in a pink frock--is that not so, Mrs. Loring?”
“It was a green frock,” said Mrs. Loring thoughtlessly; then turned quite pink. It was a pretty situation. Loring might have treasured that blush. I was avenged.