ut! My dear, you have acquired a
freedom--you have emancipated yourself from conventionality--and I
suppose I must congratulate you.' Laura only stood there, with her eyes
fixed, without answering the sally, and Selina went on, with another
change of tone: 'And pray if he _was_ there, what is there so monstrous?
Hasn't it happened that he is in London when I am there? Why is it then
so awful that he should be in Paris?'

'Awful, awful, too awful,' murmured Laura, with intense gravity, still
looking at her--looking all the more fixedly that she knew how little
Selina liked it.

'My dear, you do indulge in a style of innuendo, for a respectable
young woman!' Mrs. Berrington exclaimed, with an angry laugh. 'You have
ideas that when I was a girl----' She paused, and her sister saw that
she had not the assurance to finish her sentence on that particular
note.

'Don't talk about my innuendoes and my ideas--you might remember those
in which I have heard you indulge! Ideas? what ideas did I ever have
before I came here?' Laura Wing asked, with a trembling voice. 'Don't
pretend to be shocked, Selina; that's too cheap a defence. You have said
things to me--if you choose to talk of freedom! What is the talk of your
house and what does one hear if one lives with you? I don't care what I
hear now (it's all odious and there's little choice and my sweet
sensibility has gone God knows where!) and I'm very glad if you
understand that I don't care what I say. If one talks about your
affairs, my dear, one mustn't be too particular!' the girl continued,
with a flash of passion.

Mrs. Berrington buried her face in her hands. 'Merciful powers, to be
insulted, to be covered with outrage, by one's wretched little sister!'
she moaned.

'I think you should be thankful there is one human being--however
wretched--who cares enough for you to care about the truth in what
concerns you,' Laura said. 'Selina, Selina--are you hideously deceiving
us?'

'Us?' Selina repeated, with a singular laugh. 'Whom do you mean by us?'

Laura Wing hesitated; she had asked herself whether it would be best she
should let her sister know the dreadful scene she had had with Lionel;
but she had not, in her mind, settled that point. However, it was
settled now in an instant. 'I don't mean your friends--those of them
that I have seen. I don't think _they_ care a straw--I have never seen
such people. But last week Lionel spoke to me--he told me he _knew_ it,
as a c