"I don't understand," she gasped; "I _hope_ I don't understand. You--you
do not mean that I am to try to like Val Elster?"
"Now, Maude, no heroics. I'll not see _you_ make a fool of yourself as
your sisters have done. He's not Val Elster any longer; he is Lord
Hartledon: better-looking than ever his brother was, and will make a
better husband, for he'll be more easily led."
"I would not marry Val for the whole world," she said, with strong
emotion. "I dislike him; I hate him; I never could be a wife to Val
Elster."
"We'll see," said the dowager, pushing up her front, of which she had
just caught sight in a glass.
"Thank Heaven, there's no fear of it!" resumed Maude, collecting her
senses, and sitting down again with a relieved sigh; "he is to marry Anne
Ashton. Thank Heaven that he loves her!"
"Anne Ashton!" scornfully returned the countess-dowager. "She might have
been tolerated when he was Val Elster, not now he is Lord Hartledon. What
notions you have, Maude!"
Maude burst into tears. "Mamma, I think it is fearfully indecent for you
to begin upon these things already! It only happened last night, and--and
it sounds quite horrible."
"When one has to live as I do, one has to do many things decent and
indecent," retorted the countess-dowager sharply. "He has had his hint,
and you've got yours: and you are no true girl if you suffer yourself now
to be triumphed over by Anne Ashton.
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