Though she had clearly had the worst of the battle described in the last chapter, the Baroness Bernstein, when she next met her niece showed no rancour or anger. “Of course, my Lady Maria,” she said, “you can’t suppose that I, as Harry Warrington’s near relative, can be pleased at the idea of his marrying a woman who is as old as his mother, and has not a penny to her fortune; but if he chooses to do so silly a thing, the affair is none of mine; and I doubt whether I should have been much inclined to be taken au serieux with regard to that offer of five thousand pounds which I made in the heat of our talk. So it was already at Castlewood that this pretty affair was arranged? Had I known how far it had gone, my dear, I should have spared some needless opposition. When a pitcher is broken, what railing can mend it?”

“Madam!” here interposed Maria.

“Pardon me — I mean nothing against your ladyship’s honour or character, which, no doubt, are quite safe. Harry says so, and you say so — what more can one ask?”

“You have talked to Mr. Warrington, madam?”

“And he has owned that he made you a promise at Castlewood: that you have it in his writing.”

“Certainly I have, madam!” says Lady Maria.

“Ah!” (the elder lady did not wince at this). “And I own, too, that at first I put a wrong construction upon the tenor of your letters to him. They implicate other members of the family ——”

“Who have spoken most wickedly of me, and endeavoured to prejudice me in every way in my dear Mr. Warrington’s eyes. Yes, madam, I own I have written against them, to justify myself.”

“But, of course, are pained to think that any wretch should get possession of stories to the disadvantage of our family, and make them public scandal. Hence your disquiet just now.”

“Exactly so,” said Lady Maria. “From Mr. Warrington I could have nothing concealed henceforth, and spoke freely to him. But that is a very different thing from wishing all the world to know the disputes of a noble family.”

“Upon my word, Maria, I admire you, and have done you injustice. These — these twenty years, let us say.”

“I am very glad, madam, that you end by doing me justice at all,” said the niece.

“When I saw you last night, opening the ball with my nephew, can you guess what I thought of, my dear?”

“I really have no idea what the Baroness de Bernstein thought of,” said Lady Maria, haughtily.

“I remembered that you had performed to that very tune with the dancing-master at Kensington, my dear!”

“Madam, it was an infamous calumny.”

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