I claim it now as a
proper concession to Me. Whatever you or Mr. Julian Gray may do,
_I_ will not tamely permit her to exhibit herself as an
interesting penitent. It is really a little too much to hear this
brazen adventuress appoint her own time for explaining herself.
It is too deliberately insulting to see her sail out of the
room--with a clergyman of the Church of England opening the door
for her--as if she was laying me under an obligation! I can
forgive much, Lady Janet--including the terms in which you
thought it decent to order me out of your house. I am quite
willing to accept the offer of your boudoir, as the expression on
your part of a better frame of mind. But even Christian Charity
has its limits. The continued presence of that wretch under your
roof is, you will permit me to remark, not only a monument of
your own weakness, but a perfectly insufferable insult to Me."
There she stopped abruptly--not for want of words, but for want
of a listener.
Lady Janet was not even pretending to attend to her. Lady Janet,
with a deliberate rudeness entirely foreign to her usual habits,
was composedly busying herself in arranging the various papers
scattered about the table.
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