"I did it because I did not mean to have them here," he said."I did it because I won't have them here.""They shall come," she quavered shrilly in her wildness.
"They shall come to see me.They are my own father and mother, and I will have them."He caught her arm in such a grip that she must have thought he would break it, if she could have thought or felt anything.
"No, you will not have them," he ground forth between his teeth."You will do as I order you and learn to behave yourself as a decent married woman should.You will learn to obey your husband and respect his wishes and control your devilish American temper.""They have gone--gone!" wailed Rosalie."You sent them away! My father, my mother, my sister!""Stop your indecent ravings!" ordered Sir Nigel, shaking her."I will not submit to be disgraced before the servants.""Put your hand over her mouth, Nigel," cried his mother.
"The very scullery maids will hear."
She was as infuriated as her son.And, indeed, to behold civilised human beings in the state of uncontrolled violence these three had reached was a sight to shudder at.
"I won't stop," cried the girl."Why did you take me away from everything--I was quite happy.Everybody was kind to me.I loved people, I had everything.No one ever--ever--ever ill-used anyone----"
Sir Nigel clutched her arm more brutally still and shook her with absolute violence.Her hair broke loose and fell about her awful little distorted, sobbing face.
"I did not take you to give you an opportunity to display your vulgar ostentation by throwing away hundred-pound cheques to villagers," he said."I didn't take you to give you the position of a lady and be made a fool of by you.""You have ruined him," burst forth his mother."You have put it out of his power to marry an Englishwoman who would have known it was her duty to give something in return for his name and protection."Her ladyship had begun to rave also, and as mother and son were of equal violence when they had ceased to control themselves, Rosalie began to find herself enlightened unsparingly.She and her people were vulgar sharpers.They had trapped a gentleman into a low American marriage and had not the decency to pay for what they had got.If she had been an Englishwoman, well born, and of decent breeding, all her fortune would have been properly transferred to her husband and he would have had the dispensing of it.Her husband would have been in the position to control her expenditure and see that she did not make a fool of herself.As it was she was the derision of all decent people, of all people who had been properly brought up and knew what was in good taste and of good morality.
First it was the Dowager who poured forth, and then it was Sir Nigel.They broke in on each other, they interrupted one another with exclamations and interpolations.They had so far lost themselves that they did not know they became grotesque in the violence of their fury.Rosalie's brain whirled.Her hysteria mounted and mounted.She stared first at one and then at the other, gasping and sobbing by turns; she swayed on her feet and clutched at a chair.
"I did not know," she broke forth at last, trying to make her voice heard in the storm."I never understood.I knew something made you hate me, but I didn't know you were angry about money." She laughed tremulously and wildly.
"I would have given it to you--father would have given you some--if you had been good to me." The laugh became hysterical beyond her management.Peal after peal broke from her, she shook all over with her ghastly merriment, sobbing at one and the same time.
"Oh! oh! oh!" she shrieked."You see, I thought you were so aristocratic.I wouldn't have dared to think of such a thing.I thought an English gentleman--an English gentleman--oh! oh! to think it was all because I did not give you money--just common dollars and cents that--that I daren't offer to a decent American who could work for himself."Sir Nigel sprang at her.He struck her with his open hand upon the cheek, and as she reeled she held up her small, feverish, shaking hand, laughing more wildly than before.
"You ought not to strike me," she cried."You oughtn't!
You don't know how valuable I am.Perhaps----" with a little, crazy scream--"perhaps I might have a son."She fell in a shuddering heap, and as she dropped she struck heavily against the protruding end of an oak chest and lay upon the floor, her arms flung out and limp, as if she were a dead thing.