Some one looked in at the door, and then advanced within and came straight to Clementina; she knew without looking up that it was Mrs.
Milray. "I have been hunting for you, Miss Claxon," she said, in a voice frostily fierce, and with a bearing furiously formal. "I have a letter to Miss Milray that my busband wished me to write for you, and give you with his compliments."
"Thank you," said Clementina. She rose mechanically to her feet, and at the same time Mrs. Milray sat down.
"You will find Miss Milray," she continued, with the same glacial hauteur, "a very agreeable and cultivated lady."
Clementina said nothing; and Mrs. Milray added, "And I hope she may have the happiness of being more useful to you than I have."
"What do you mean, Mrs. Milray? "Clementina asked with unexpected spirit and courage.
"I mean simply this, that I have not succeeded in putting you on your guard against your love of admiration--especially the admiration of gentlemen. A young girl can't be too careful how she accepts the attentions of gentlemen, and if she seems to invite them--"
"Mrs. Milray cried Clementina. "How can you say such a thing to me?"
"How? I shall have to be plain with you, I see. Perhaps I have not considered that, after all, you know nothing about life and are not to blame for things that a person born and bred in the world would understand from childhood. If you don't know already, I can tell you that the way you have behaved with Lord Lioncourt during the last two or three days, and the way you showed your pleasure the other night in his ridiculous flatteries of you, was enough to make you the talk of the whole steamer. I advise you for your own sake to take my warning in time. You are very young, and inexperienced and ignorant, but that will not save you in the eyes of the world if you keep on." Mrs. Milray rose.