'You shameless minx!' exclaimed Georgie, pale with anger.
'Where is Smithson--my poor, good Smithson?'
'Fast asleep in his bed at Formosa, I hope, dear Lady Kirkbank,' the
Cuban answered, with perfect _sang froid_. 'Smithson is out of it, as
you idiomatic English say. I hope, Lady Kirkbank, you will be as kind to
me as you have been to Smithson; and depend upon it I shall make Lady
Lesbia as good a husband as ever Smithson could have done.'
'You!' exclaimed the matron, contemptuously. 'You!--a foreigner, an
adventurer, who may be as poor as Job, for anything I know about you.'
'Job was once rather comfortably off, Lady Kirkbank; and I can answer
for it that Montesma's wife will know none of the pangs of poverty.'
'If you were a beggar I would not care,' said Lesbia, drawing nearer to
him.
They had both risen at Lady Kirkbank's approach, and were standing side
by side, confronting her. Lesbia had shrunk from the idea of poverty
with John Hammond; yet, for this man's sake, she was ready to face
penury, ruin, disgrace, anything.
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