“By which you mean to say that my son is fallen so low as to dissipate with you what you have received from others.”
“Pardon me again; I am a woman, and in my own house; two reasons which demand your courtesy, and—and you will allow me to—to leave you.”
“Truly, as I look upon and hear you, madame, I can hardly believe the scandals I have heard of you, you, who I have been told, are dangerous company.”
“Dangerous to myself, perhaps.”
“But this lawyer’s letter, does it not prove my poor son’s ruin? does it not show he is realizing all he is worth?”
She took the letter in her hand, and glanced hastily over its contents.
“I declare to you I know nothing of this act. I declare to you that your son knows I would refuse to take money from him.”
“You have not always spoken so.”
“I have not always been the woman that I am.”
The unfortunate creature then burst into an incoherent declaration of her passion for the youth, but the disbelieving gentleman merely shrugged his shoulders.