Confronted with the final insult, all Gundred’s pride, the best side of her courage rallied to her aid. Her manner betrayed no agitation, paid Mrs. Mimburn no compliment of excitement. Perfectly cool and level was her voice as she looked up and answered:
‘You seem to forget that we are not living in one of that dreadful man’s plays,’ she said. ‘I should despise myself if ever I were capable of having such thoughts of my husband or my cousin. As you said just now, such things are not done--in the class I know, at all events.’ She fixed a cool, contemptuous, grey stare on the astounded Minne-Adélaïde, who suddenly had an unaccustomed feeling of getting the worst of it.
Fluttered by this sudden revolt, Mrs. Mimburn made an effort to recover lost ground.
‘I am sorry you take it like that,’ she began. ‘Of course one does not mean to accuse----’
‘We will talk of something else--yes?’ said Gundred very coolly, but with complete decision.
Minne-Adélaïde gasped. She considered her attitude towards life all that was _chic_, up-to-date, and sound. She imagined that no man or woman could ever spend the dark hours in each other’s neighbourhood without the ultimate disaster, and piqued herself on the smart knowledge of the world that discerned adultery in the most casual compliments. Gundred’s sudden revolt was preposterous in its ignorance of human nature, as well as supremely insolent in its offhand condemnation of her own views. She completely lost her temper.
‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘one has to remember how little you know of things, poor dear! Your innocence is really beautiful--if it weren’t so pathetic. You will have a rude awakening one of these days. I am afraid there can be no doubt that your husband has already----’
She broke off, daunted by the look in Gundred’s eyes. The immemorial pride of the Mortimers gleamed and flashed in them. Gundred might have been brought up to be calm, unemotional, well mannered, but she came of a race that had never allowed itself to be baited by inferiors. And almost everyone else in the world was an inferior. Gundred fixed a chilling stare on Mrs. Mimburn’s excited face. ‘Be quiet, please,’ she said; ‘I am afraid you are a very vulgar woman.’