Noreen turned again to her traducer.
"Will you kindly contradict your false statement?" she asked.
The other woman looked down sullenly and made no reply.
"Then I shall," continued the girl. She faced the group of men before her,
Payne and Travers by her side.
"I ask you to believe, gentlemen, that there never was nor could be any
question of an engagement between Mr. Chunerbutty and me," she said firmly.
"And I give you my word of honour that I never said such a thing to Mrs.
Rice."
She waited for a moment, then turned and walked away down the verandah,
followed by Payne and Travers, leaving a pained silence behind her. Mrs.
Rice tried to regain her self-confidence.
"The idea of that chit talking to me like that!" she exclaimed. "It was
only meant for a joke, if I did say it. Who'd have ever thought she'd have
taken it that way?"
"Any decent man--or woman, Mrs. Rice," said Dermot severely. Then, after
looking at Rice to see if he wished to take up the cudgels on his wife's
behalf, and failing to catch that gentleman's carefully-averted eye, the
soldier turned and walked deliberately to where Noreen was sitting, now
suffering from the reaction from her anger and frightened at the memory of
her boldness.
The other men got up one by one and went to the bar, from which the hen
pecked Rice was peremptorily called by his angry wife and ordered to drive
her home.
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