"Why, Lord Verney," she said, "how ungallant!" She smiled and looked bewitchingly beautiful; looked serious and reproachful, and he fell beyond his depths in rapture.
"Why, you know me, you know me well," said she, "am I not Mistress Bellairs, Kitty Bellairs—am I not, Kitty?"
"No, no," cried he, "I never knew you till this hour, madam, Mistress Bellairs Kitty! I see you," he cried, "for the first time! Oh, God, be kind to me, for I love her!"
"And yet," she whispered archly, "they say that love is blind."
Upon this he kissed her as he had kissed her beneath the mask; and if anything could have been sweeter than the first kiss it was the second.
Ah, love, how easy an art to learn, how hard to unlearn!
While Harry Verney thus forgot the whole world, his first duel, and the code of honour. Sir Jasper sat inditing an answer to his communication:—
"Sir Jasper Standish has received my Lord Verney's explanation in the spirit in which it is offered. He is quite ready to acknowledge that he has acted entirely under a misapprehension, and begs Lord Verney to receive his unreserved apologies and the expression of his admiration for Lord Verney's gallant and gentlemanly behaviour, together with his congratulations to him and the unknown lady upon their enviable situation."
Captain Spicer did not offer to supply his principal's place in the field. Indeed, he displayed to Sir Jasper, who received him with the most gloomy courtesy, the extreme suppleness of his spine, and pressed his unrivalled snuff upon him with a fluttering and ingratiating air.
When he returned to Pierrepoint Street he found the mysterious stranger already in her sedan, Lord Verney leaning through the window thereof, engaged in an earnest whispering conversation. Captain Spicer jocularly pulled him back by the coat-tails and inserted his own foolish face instead. The lady was masked and cloaked as he had left her.