Ingram looked at her for a moment, and said gravely and slowly, "Before we talk any more about that I must clear my conscience. I perceive that I have done you a wrong. I came here prepared to accuse you of drawing away Mr. Lavender from his wife, of seeking amusement, and perhaps some social distinction, by keeping him continually dangling after you; and I meant to reproach you, or even threaten you, until you promised never to see him again."
A quick flush, partly of shame and partly of annoyance, sprang to Mrs. Lorraine's fair and pale face; but she answered calmly, "It is perhaps as well that you did not tell me this a few minutes ago. May I ask what has led you to change your opinion of me, if it has changed?"
"Of course it has changed," he said, promptly and emphatically. "I can see that I did you a great injury, and I apologize for it, and beg your forgiveness. But when you ask me what has led me to change my opinion, what am I to say? Your manner, perhaps, more than what you have said has convinced me that I was wrong."
"Perhaps you are again mistaken," she said coldly: "you get rapidly to conclusions."
"The reproof is just," he said. "You are quite right. I have made a blunder: there is no mistake about it."
"But do you think it was fair," she said with some spirit--"do you think it was fair to believe all this harm about a woman you had never seen? Now, listen. A hundred times I have begged Mr. Lavender to be more attentive to his wife--not in these words, of course, but as directly as I could. Mamma has given parties, made arrangements for visits, drives and all sorts of things, to tempt Mrs. Lavender to come to us, and all in vain. Of course you can't thrust yourself on any one like that. Though mamma and myself like Mrs. Lavender very well, it is asking too much that we should encounter the humiliation of intermeddling."
Here she stopped suddenly, with the least show of embarrassment. Then she said frankly, "You are an old friend of hers. It is very good of you to have risked so much for the sake of that girl. There are very few gentlemen whom one meets who would do as much."
Ingram could say nothing, and was a little impatient with himself. Was he to be first reproved, and then treated with an indulgent kindness, by a mere girl?