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Updated: May 8, 2025
Now, Tita had decided, during her late interview with Tom, that she would never willingly see him again; but here and thus to be ordered to do her own desire is more than she can bear. "No, I shall not do that," says she. "You shall," says Rylton, whose temper is now beyond his control. "I shall not." Tita is standing back from him, her small flower-like head uplifted, her eyes on fire.
"Yet though you have forsaken me, Margaret, I will do as you wish." She turns to Rylton. "It was against Margaret's wish that I hid behind that screen. I heard you coming, and there was no way out of the room except by the door through which you would enter, and rather than meet you I felt" with a sudden flash of her large eyes at him "I would willingly die.
"My dear Marian, I am afraid Maurice is proving false," says Lady Rylton, leaning back in her chair, and giving way to soft, delicate mirth the mirth that suits her Dresden china sort of beauty. "Evidently our dear Tita is not afraid of you." "You take a wrong reading of it, perhaps," says Mrs. Bethune, who is now, in spite of all her efforts to be emotionless, a little pale.
You, who gave me to understand, when I resisted, that I had no place on this big earth except a pauper's place a place in a workhouse!" She stands tall, grave, magnificent, in her fury before Lady Rylton, who, in spite of the courage born of want of feeling, now shrinks from her as if affrighted.
"The night before last I had a bad dream," says Tita solemnly, turning her head a little to one side, and giving him a slight glance that lasts for the tiniest fraction of a second. It occurs to Rylton that there is a little touch of wickedness in it. At all events, he grows interested. "A bad dream?" "Yes, the worst!" She nods her small head reproachfully at him.
"How dare you speak to her like that?" says she, her calm, kind face transfigured. "I hope to see you ashamed of yourself to-morrow. Be quiet, Tita. I will look after you." She turns again hurriedly to Rylton, who is looking very white and breathing heavily, with his eyes immovably fixed on Tita. "She will come with me to my house to-morrow," says Margaret. "You will, Tita?"
You forget what is due to the head of the house." "I do not, indeed; Maurice will tell you so!" "Maurice! What has he to do with it?" "Why, he is the head," slowly. "True, you are right so far," says Lady Rylton bitterly. "But I was not alluding to the actual head; I was alluding to the the mistress of this house." She pauses, and looks with open hatred at the little girl before her.
"You don't want my money now; you have plenty of your own, and," throwing up her head with a disdainful little gesture, "certainly you don't want me." "You seem wonderfully certain on many points," says Rylton, "but is your judgment always infallible?" "In this case, yes." "Ah! you have decided," says he. His gaze wanders from her face and falls upon her hands.
Popularly she had been supposed to hate Tita, and resent her marriage with Rylton, who was a relative of hers; but five days after the fiasco, as Randal called it, Rylton had a letter from her that somewhat startled him. It was extremely abusive, and rather involved; but the meaning of it was that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and that Tita was too good for him.
Instinctively both he and Lady Rylton look towards the open window. There below, still attended by Mr. Gower, and coming back from her charitable visit to the swans, is Tita, her little head upheld, her bright eyes smiling, her lips parted. There is a sense of picturesque youth about the child that catches Rylton's attention, and holds it for the moment.
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