"And so you were obliged to marry your _bête noire_ after all! My dear, it has been the talk of the town. Come, sit down, and tell me all about it. I am burning to hear how it came about."
Doris's old friend, Mrs. Lockyard, paused to flick the ash from her cigarette, and to laugh slyly at the girl's face of discomfiture.
Doris also held a cigarette between her fingers, but she was only toying with it restlessly.
"There isn't much to tell," she said. "We were married by special licence. I was not obliged to marry him. I chose to do so."
Mrs. Lockyard laughed again, not very pleasantly.
"And left poor Maurice in the lurch. That was rather cruel of you after all his chivalrous efforts to deliver you from bondage. And he so hard up, too."
A flush of anger rose in the girl's face. She tilted her chin with the old proud gesture.
"I should not have married him in any case," she said. "He made that quite impossible by his own act. He--was not so chivalrous as I thought."
A gleam of malice shone for a moment in Mrs. Lockyard's eyes, and just a hint of it was perceptible in her voice as she made response.
"One has to make allowances sometimes. All men are not made after the pattern of your chosen lord and master. He, I grant you, is hard as granite and about as impassive. Still I mustn't depreciate your prize since it was of your own choosing. Let me wish you instead every happiness."
"He was not impassive that night," said Doris quickly, with a sharp inward sense of injustice.
"No. At least--Major Brandon did not find him so." Doris's blue eyes took fire at the recollection. "He gave him his deserts," she said, with a certain exultation. "He thrashed him."
"Oh, my dear, he would have done that in any case. That was an old, old score paid off at last. Forgive me for depriving you of this small gratification. But that debt was contracted many years ago when you were scarcely out of your cradle. Your presence was a mere incident. You were the opportunity, not the cause."
"I don't know what you mean," said Doris, looking her straight in the face.
"No? Well, my dear, it isn't my business to enlighten you. If you really want to know, I must refer you to your husband. Surely that is Mrs. Fricker over there. You will not mind if she joins us?"
