Now, hot-blooded, red-headed Irishman as he was, it was the rarest thing in the world for this nobleman to be seriously out of temper with anyone, let alone with the wife of his bosom; but, as he flung himself into Kitty’s hired parlour, he was in as irate a mood as he had ever indulged in, and that with his Lady.
“Here’s a pretty business!” quoth he, and cast his hat on the table in the middle of the room, very nearly dislodging the glass dome which protected a gold filigree basket containing the most purple plums, the reddest strawberries, the bluest grapes that ever artist in wax produced. “Here’s a pretty to-do!” cried Denis Kilcroney.
“There seems indeed to be a to-do!” retorted Kitty. She wheeled round from the window. “But you will condescend to explain the cause perhaps, my Lord?”
“So I hear you’ve got a place about the court, me darling,” said Denis, plunging into sarcasm, with a flushed countenance. “’Pon me soul, ’tis the grand lady you’re going to be entirely! ’Tis the back seat your husband will have to be taking. Glory be to God, what’s a husband? And an Irish one into the bargain!”
“Pray, my Lord,” cried Kitty, all eagerness. “Where have you heard the news? For, as I’m a living woman, ’tis news to me.”
“Ah! go on out of that.” My Lord was certainly very angry, and more than usually Hibernian. “Didn’t that fat baggage come straight out of these doors? Didn’t she put that full moon face of hers out of the sedan window and bawl to her men to stop, and them with the sweat dripping off them, God help them! And ‘oh,’ she calls, ‘My Lord Kilcroney,’ she cries, ‘’tis quite settled,’ she says. ‘And your Kitty to take my post about Her Majesty.’ Why, all Cheltenham could have heard her.”
“Tush!” Kitty’s peach-tinted countenance, agog with delight, fell. “Is that all? Why——” she was about to expound to Denis with some firmness the folly of giving way to passion over an event that was still in the uncertain future, at the same time conveying to him her clear intention to leave no stone unturned towards its accomplishment, when her little black page appeared at the open door, grinning at the sounds of dispute, and announced: “Mistress Lafone.” And if the sight of dusky innocence amused was exasperating to my Lady, what can be said of the feelings aroused by the smile of minxish artfulness?
“Good heavens,” cried Kitty. “And what brings you to Cheltenham, if one may ask?”
“Good-morrow, my sweet Kilcroney.”
This familiarity!