"Do I understand that you walked on the terrace alone with Mr. Dundas?" she asked in a peculiarly chilly voice.
Madge showed no surprise; she had known what was coming.
Her mother sat down; Madge had not turned from the window and was still looking out.
"Kindly attend, Madge," she said. "It was very indiscreet, and you know it. I don't think Mr. Home liked it."
Of the girl who had talked so eagerly and naturally to Evelyn on the terrace there was hardly a trace; Madge's face had grown nearly as hard as her mother's.
"I am not bound just yet to do all Mr. Home likes," she said.
"You are bound, if you are a sensible creature, at all events not to run any risks, especially now."
"You mean until the bargain is completed. Supposing I refuse?" she said, and there was a little tremor in her voice, partly of contempt, partly of fear.
Lady Ellington, as has been remarked, never let her emotions, however justifiable, run away with her; she never, above all, got hot or angry. Causes which in others would produce anger, produced in her only an additional coldness and dryness, which Madge was, somehow, afraid of with unreasoning nightmare kind of fear.
"I will not suppose anything so absurd!" said her mother. "You are twenty-five years old, and you have never yet fallen in love at all. But as I have pointed out to you before, you will be far happier married than living on into the loneliness and insignificance of being an old maid. Lots of girls never fall in love in the silly, sentimental manner which produces lyrics. You are quite certainly one of them. And as certainly Mr. Home is in love with you."
"We have been into this before," said the girl.
"It is necessary, apparently, to go into it again. Mr. Home, I feel certain, is going to propose to you, and you should not do indiscreet things. With regard to your refusing him, it is out of the question. He is extremely suitable in every way. And you told me yourself you had made up your mind to accept him."
"You made up my mind," said Madge; "but it comes to the same thing."
"Precisely. So please promise me not to do anything which a girl in your position should not do. There is no earthly harm in your walking with any penniless artist in the moonlight, if you were not situated as you are. But at the moment it is indiscreet."