"Lady Sara never quizzed her at all; and for what you did, don't make yourself in the least uneasy: Mrs. Bretton will survive your sneer."
"She may: old ladies are tough; but that poor son of hers! Do tell me what he said: I saw he was terribly cut up."
"He said you looked as if at heart you were already Madame de Hamal."
"Did he?" she cried with delight. "He noticed that? How charming! I thought he would be mad with jealousy?"
"Ginevra, have you seriously done with Dr. Bretton? Do you want him to give you up?"
"Oh! you know he can't do that: but wasn't he mad?"
"Quite mad," I assented; "as mad as a March hare."
"Well, and how ever did you get him home?"
"How ever, indeed! Have you no pity on his poor mother and me? Fancy us holding him tight down in the carriage, and he raving between us, fit to drive everybody delirious. The very coachman went wrong, somehow, and we lost our way."
"You don't say so? You are laughing at me. Now, Lucy Snowe--"
"I assure you it is fact--and fact, also, that Dr. Bretton would not stay in the carriage: he broke from us, and would ride outside."
"And afterwards?"
"Afterwards--when he did reach home--the scene transcends description."
"Oh, but describe it--you know it is such fun!"
"Fun for you, Miss Fanshawe? but" (with stern gravity) you know the proverb--'What is sport to one may be death to another.'"
"Go on, there's a darling Timon."
"Conscientiously, I cannot, unless you assure me you have some heart."
"I have--such an immensity, you don't know!"
"Good! In that case, you will be able to conceive Dr. Graham Bretton rejecting his supper in the first instance--the chicken, the sweetbread prepared for his refreshment, left on the table untouched. Then----but it is of no use dwelling at length on the harrowing details. Suffice it to say, that never, in the most stormy fits and moments of his infancy, had his mother such work to tuck the sheets about him as she had that night."
"He wouldn't lie still?"
"He wouldn't lie still: there it was. The sheets might be tucked in, but the thing was to keep them tucked in."
"And what did he say?"
"Say! Can't you imagine him demanding his divine Ginevra, anathematizing that demon, de Hamal--raving about golden locks, blue eyes, white arms, glittering bracelets?"
"No, did he? He saw the bracelet?"
"Saw the bracelet? Yes, as plain as I saw it: and, perhaps, for the first time, he saw also the brand-mark with which its pressure has encircled your arm. Ginevra" (rising, and changing my tone), "come, we will have an end of this. Go away to your practising."