I cannot bring myself to think you thick-
witted, Frank."
"Then I must be the perfect hypocrite, of course."
"You believed I accepted Lord Fawn because it was natural that I should
wish to marry again! Frank, you believed nothing of the kind. I accepted
him in my anger, in my misery, in my despair, because I had expected you
to come to me, and you had not come." She had thrown herself now into a
chair, and sat looking at him. "You had told me you would come, and you
had stayed away. It was you, Frank, that I wanted to punish then; but
there was no punishment in it for you. When is it to be, Frank?"
"When is what to be?" he asked, in a low voice, all but dumbfounded. How
was he to put an end to this conversation, and what was he to say to her?
"Your marriage with that little wizened thing who gave you the ring, that
prim morsel of feminine propriety who has been clever enough to make you
believe that her morality would suffice to make you happy."
"I will not hear Lucy Morris abused, Lizzie."
"Is that abuse? Is it abuse to say that she is moral and proper? But, sir,
I shall abuse her. I know her for what she is, while your eyes are sealed.
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