“Bee,” Mrs. Kingsward said, “I have long wanted an opportunity to speak to you.”
“Yes, mamma,” she said, looking up with a rush of blood to her heart, feeling that the moment had come. But she would not have been Bee if she had not put a little something of her own into the thick of the crisis. “There were plenty of opportunities--we have been together all day.”
“You know what I mean,” said Mrs. Kingsward. “Bee, I saw you reading a letter this morning.”
Bee looked her mother in the face. “I have never made any secret of it,” she said. “I have read them openly before papa--I never would pretend they were anything different. Of course it was from Aubrey, mamma.”
“Oh, Bee!” said her mother. “You have never told me what your father said to you that morning. He told me that it was all over and done with--that he would never listen to another word on the subject.”
“Stop a moment, mamma! He never said I was not to write; he never said there was to be no correspondence. Had he said so, I should have, at least, considered what it was best to do.”
“Considered what was best! But you were not the judge. I hope you would have obeyed your father, Bee.”
“I cannot say, mamma. You must remember that it is my case and not his. I don’t know what I should have done. But it was not necessary, for he said nothing about it.”
“Bee, my dear child, he may have said nothing; but you know very well that when he said it was entirely broken off he meant what he said.”
“Papa is very capable of saying what he means,” said Bee. “I did not think it was any business of mine to inquire what might be his secret meaning. Mamma, dear, don’t be vexed; but, oh, that would have been too hard! And for Aubrey, too.”
“I think much less of Aubrey that he should carry on a clandestine correspondence with a girl like you.”
“Clandestine!” cried Bee, with blazing eyes. “No more clandestine than your letters that come by the post with your own name upon them. If Aubrey did not scorn anything that is clandestine, I should. There is nothing like that between him and me.”
“I never supposed you would be guilty of any artifice, Bee; but you are going completely against your father--making a fool of him, indeed--making it all ridiculous--when you carry on a correspondence, as if you were engaged, after he has broken everything off.”